Florida man, 71, staged his own suicide to look like MURDER by copying CSI plot and tying a weather balloon to a gun so it would float over the Atlantic and disappear after he shot himself
By Matthew Wright
Daily Mail
July 14, 2018
Detectives in Florida were perplexed when they learned that a CSI episode may have possibly inspired a man to kill himself but make it appear like he had been murdered.
Authorities closed the case for 71-year-old Alan Jay Abrahamson, who was found dead near his BallenIsles Country Club home on January 25.
When police found Abrahamson's body a little after 7am on January 25, they discovered that his royal blue sweatshirt had a circle of blood on it where the bullet had pierced his heart.
But detectives noticed something strange - there was a thin line of blood running to his shoulder, a supplement obtained by the Palm Beach Post details.
Police reports from the day stated that surveillance-camera video showed him walking with an object in his left hand around 5.53am. At approximately 6.30am, 'the sound of an apparent single gunshot can clearly be heard'.
The investigators called the incident a murder and offered a $3,000 reward, but found that they weren't getting any tips.
And by mid-March, officials ruled the death a suicide but stated that they would not elaborate, at the time.
But as early as February 1, one detective 'theorized that it possibly was not a homicide, but possibly a suicide,' citing the shirt as an indication.
'The linear blood transfer pattern on Abrahamson's sweatshirt from the entry wound toward the upper left shoulder (was an) indication that something with the approximate width of a string passed through the blood on the outside of the shirt,' the supplement explained.
They admitted that a balloon-gun theory 'seemed far-fetched, it was plausible
Scouring the internet, they soon stumbled upon a episode of 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation' from 2003 where a person tied a gun to a weather balloon in an effort to make suicide look like murder.
Then in 2008, they learned that a Red Lobster executive tried to copy the plot when he committed suicide in New Mexico.
A few days later on February 5, law enforcement returned to the shooting scene and found 'pieces of white string/twine with knots tied and some colored rubber bands' that were 40yards away from where Abrahamson's body was found.
Those same string and rubber bands were found in a drawer at Abrahamson's home.
Investigators also found a small pair of silver scissors close to where the body was found.
The detectives had identified his wife, Linda, who had been visiting her daughter in Massachusetts at the time of the suicide.
She shared with police that her husband owned several guns, prompting Abrahamson's son to show them a bag filled with three handguns and ammunition in the family's garage.
Police found that leading up to his suicide, Abrahamason took out several life insurance policies and had researched whether they would still hold in the event of a suicide. He had also deleted all his Dropbox files from his server.
Further investigation showed that dating as far back as 2009, the man used Google to search how to commit suicide by gun, hanging, drugs and poison. Abrahamson had also researched how quickly victims die from the methods, along with searches for helium balloons.
In October 2017, officers learned that Abrahamson bought a 350-gram weather balloon for $127.72 from a store in Tampa, Florida. On Christmas Day, he purchased a second one for $62.51 that was 600grams.
'Thank you for your purchase,' an email to him stated. The man responded just a few days later on January 4 and asked: 'With an 800-gram load, what will the burst altitude be? Thank you, Alan.'
Between September 27 and January 21, the balloon vendor stated that Abrahamson had sent four different emails asking questions about the logistics of the balloons.
'No family or friends (of Abrahamson) knew of any interest in weather balloons, aerial photography or weather,' the supplement read.
Abrahamson continued making purchases, including a January 23 purchase of $189.86 for a 40-cubic-foot tank of helium at Air Gas outfit in Riviera Beach.
He was said to have purchased an additional tank for $132.21 on the next day. That purchase was from NexAir, located in West Palm Beach. Both purchases were paid for with cash.
Weather conditions for the day of Abraham's death suggest that the balloon would have ascended approximately 19 miles before exploding somewhere over the north of the Bahamas. It would have landed in open water.
The open field 'was optimal for a weather balloon launch,' according to the report.
However, the balloon, gun, nor the tanks were ever recovered.
Abrahamson was described as being 'a fun guy that everybody wanted to be around.' A friend shared with police that he had dined with the man on January 23 and had had lunch with him the following day.
He added that Abrahamson even suggested that the pair meet up again on Friday night to have dinner. Friday was the 26th of January.
Linda, his wife, was distraught from the news of his death. The two had both been previously married, but Linda asserted that her husband 'took care of everything and told her she would always be taken care of.'
'Linda stated that Alan was the love of her life,' the report detailed.
The couple had traveled to Boston together but after a week on January 21, Abrahamson claimed to be tired of the cold and rushed back to West Palm Beach. He told her that he would come back on January 28.
He had allegedly shared with his wife that he wanted to lose some weight. But he also had planned a cruise for later in the year and had been taking walks with friends.
Records show that he owned a 5,000square-ft home in BallenIsles since March 2015.
For the last five years, he'd been working as a developed at a Washington state-based LED lighting company Every Watt Matters.
He also had money from a family flooring business he had had from Connecticut.
'He woke up each morning with a smile on his face and was adored by all,' his obituary said. 'Wherever Alan was, he made it "happy hour."'
Sunday, July 15, 2018
IN MEXICO THEY TREAT MIGRANTS LIKE HUMANS, IN THE U.S. THEY TREAT THEM LIKE CRIMINALS
Mexico’s Own Refugee Surge: A Soaring Number Of Latin Americans Are Fleeing Criminal Violence And Political Chaos
By Ioan Grillo
USNews
July 10, 2018
TAPACHULA, Mexico — Yesica Cashpal had been celebrating Father's Day with her husband and two young children in their home in El Salvador when there was an ominous knock at the door from local gang members. Speaking to her husband, the gang members demanded they be able to utilize the house to stash drugs and weapons. When he refused, they became angry and said they would tell their boss and there would be consequences.
Cashpal, 24, knew the gang's threats were not idle; they had killed dozens in the area and three years ago murdered her very neighbor, leaving his body for hours in the sun while people were too scared to call the police. So the same night as the threat, the family abandoned their home and headed north with little more than the clothes they were wearing.
"They kill children, women, older men, youths," Cashpal says, hugging her son and daughter outside a church shelter in this humid city in southern Mexico. "When they killed my neighbor it was traumatic … everybody was looking while there were flies around his body, dogs licking the blood."
While many Salvadorans head to the United States, Cashpal has stayed here in Mexico, where she has begun the process of applying for refugee status. She says the family members had no money to travel further and are concerned about the reports of harsh treatment of refugees by U.S. authorities.
Their application is one of a surging number in Mexico amid criminal violence and political turmoil in several countries across Latin America. In 2017, there were more than 14,000 refugee claims in Mexico, up from 2,000 in 2014, according to the United Nations refugee agency, or UNHCR. This year there will likely be more still, says a Mexican official who handles the requests and spoke on condition of anonymity.
President Donald Trump has complained that Mexico is not doing enough to stop the wave of people heading through its territory toward the Rio Grande. "Mexico does nothing for us," he said during a recent meeting of his Cabinet. "They encourage people, frankly, to walk through Mexico and go into the United States."
By taking on thousands of refugees, however, Mexico is relieving the burden on the overloaded U.S. courts. Mexico also detains large numbers of undocumented Central Americans who are not applying for refugee status here, and deports them back to their home countries. In fiscal year 2017, Mexico deported more than 94,000 Central Americans – even more than the 74,000 deported from the United States in the same time, according to figures from the Migration Policy Institute cited by the newspaper Reforma.
Violence by gangs such as the Mara Salvatrucha drives many of the refugees from their homes in Central America's Northern Triangle of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. But there has also been a wave of political turmoil, with bloody crackdowns on protesters in Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela over the past year. The top source countries of refugees arriving in Mexico are now Honduras, followed by Venezuela and then El Salvador, according to the UNHCR.
Luis Andara, 57, fled his home in Nicaragua and is applying for refugee status in Mexico, saying he has been targeted for his family links to the political-military apparatus, while he himself is not a government supporter. "I got stuck in the middle," he says, standing in a river outside the church shelter and scrubbing himself down with soap. "I was followed and I was beat up badly, I was thrown from a 7-meter bridge. … My hand was separated from the arm, hanging from a little bit of flesh."
Free to Go in Mexico
In the United States, many refugees are kept in detention while their claims are processed, which can take months or even years. In Mexico, refugee claimants are left free, as long as they don't leave the state. "Here they treat you like a migrant, like a human. In the United States, they treat you like a criminal," says Elid Turcio, 38, who first applied for asylum in the United States but was rejected and is now applying in Mexico. He fled Honduras after his brother and parents were murdered by a drug trafficking gang.
U.S. courts deny the majority of asylum claims from Central Americans, rejecting 79 percent of those from El Salvador and 78 percent of those from Honduras between 2012 and 2017, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. In contrast, Mexico approved 64 percent of refugee claims from Salvadorans and 50 percent of those from Hondurans last year, according to the UNHCR.
U.S. courts demand that refugees show they are persecuted by the government or are targeted for being from a vulnerable minority, and generally do not accept those who are fleeing gangsters. This position was hardened by a June 11 ruling by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. "Asylum was never meant to solve all problems – even all serious problems – that people face every day all over the world," Sessions said.
In contrast in Mexico, refugee claims are usually only refused if there is not enough evidence of the threats themselves or if the claimant has a serious criminal record, explains an official from the Mexican Refugee Commission.
Many of the refugees arriving in Mexico sneak into the country from Guatemala, walking over the hills or crossing one of the rivers, before making their application. In the Guatemalan border town of Tecun Uman, oarsmen charge about $1.30 to cross into Mexico on a raft built with tractor tires, and all day rafts full of people can be seen. Most are local residents who go into Mexico to do their shopping, an informal cross-border commerce that has long been tolerated. Migrants and refugees move among them. They then can travel by bus to the larger city of Tapachula, although Mexican immigration officials run sporadic checkpoints on the road.
The entry of refugees and migrants has swelled Tapachula, with makeshift barrios emerging on the outskirts. The center is bustling with people from across the globe, not only from Latin America but as far afield as Africa. David Eca, 33, came from the Congo, where he says his father had been murdered in political violence. Flying to Ecuador, he traveled by land through South and Central America and aims to reach the United States and apply for asylum there.
Those seeking refuge in Mexico are not given work permits while their applications are processed, and many rely on charity while some beg for money. Others work without papers, toiling in coffee fields or construction sites. One pickup truck arrived by the church shelter to take a group to work for the promise of 150 pesos, or about $8, for the day.
Mexico's Own Violence
Mexico also has its own serious problems of criminal violence, which can be as bad as in the countries people have run from. In 2017, journalist Edwin Rivera fled Honduras after threats but was then murdered in Veracruz, Mexico. Cartels here have also kidnapped large groups of Central Americans to demand ransom money, pressuring them to call family members they have in the United States. In the run-up to the July 1 national elections, more than 100 candidates or party militants were murdered.
"Mexico is not safe for those who flee violence," Doctors Without Borders said in a June 26 statement. "The impossibility of getting asylum in the United States would leave tens of thousands in a situation of extreme vulnerability."
Alongside refugees and migrants looking for work, some criminals also slip into southern Mexico without papers. There are currently more than 100 foreigners in Tapachula's prison out of a total population of about 900. Most are undocumented Central Americans, including members of the rival Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs, says public defense lawyer Luis Del Rosario.
Del Rosario says he labors for a fair treatment for all the defendants, whatever the nationality.
"We can't be indifferent about Central Americans. On the contrary, we have to give them the same respect and attention that we want for ourselves," he says. "It is like if Mexicans go to the United States, we want respect. We have to start here."
Some others in the city, however, are less tolerant. Restaurant owner Angel Brindis says the Mexican government should work harder to stop foreigners entering who come to commit crimes rather than work, and has had to defend himself from robbery and assault on various occasions. "They come outside the business, drugged up or drunk, looking for problems," he says. "They hold up stores with knives and guns, they demand money from people walking by."
The presence of Central American gang members also makes refugees concerned they could run into members of the same mobs they are fleeing. Turcio, who ran from Honduras, says he avoids the center of Tapachula so he is not seen by anyone connected to the drug trafficking gang who murdered his family.
Cashpal, the Salvadoran refugee, says she has received warm treatment in Mexico. When her family arrived at the river, the oarsman took pity on them, providing free transit and money for the bus.
Fear has followed her, but she says her faith gives her the strength to keep going.
"I trust in God that everything will be all right," she says. "But tomorrow, we don't know if we are going to wake up alive or what."
By Ioan Grillo
USNews
July 10, 2018
TAPACHULA, Mexico — Yesica Cashpal had been celebrating Father's Day with her husband and two young children in their home in El Salvador when there was an ominous knock at the door from local gang members. Speaking to her husband, the gang members demanded they be able to utilize the house to stash drugs and weapons. When he refused, they became angry and said they would tell their boss and there would be consequences.
Cashpal, 24, knew the gang's threats were not idle; they had killed dozens in the area and three years ago murdered her very neighbor, leaving his body for hours in the sun while people were too scared to call the police. So the same night as the threat, the family abandoned their home and headed north with little more than the clothes they were wearing.
"They kill children, women, older men, youths," Cashpal says, hugging her son and daughter outside a church shelter in this humid city in southern Mexico. "When they killed my neighbor it was traumatic … everybody was looking while there were flies around his body, dogs licking the blood."
While many Salvadorans head to the United States, Cashpal has stayed here in Mexico, where she has begun the process of applying for refugee status. She says the family members had no money to travel further and are concerned about the reports of harsh treatment of refugees by U.S. authorities.
Their application is one of a surging number in Mexico amid criminal violence and political turmoil in several countries across Latin America. In 2017, there were more than 14,000 refugee claims in Mexico, up from 2,000 in 2014, according to the United Nations refugee agency, or UNHCR. This year there will likely be more still, says a Mexican official who handles the requests and spoke on condition of anonymity.
President Donald Trump has complained that Mexico is not doing enough to stop the wave of people heading through its territory toward the Rio Grande. "Mexico does nothing for us," he said during a recent meeting of his Cabinet. "They encourage people, frankly, to walk through Mexico and go into the United States."
By taking on thousands of refugees, however, Mexico is relieving the burden on the overloaded U.S. courts. Mexico also detains large numbers of undocumented Central Americans who are not applying for refugee status here, and deports them back to their home countries. In fiscal year 2017, Mexico deported more than 94,000 Central Americans – even more than the 74,000 deported from the United States in the same time, according to figures from the Migration Policy Institute cited by the newspaper Reforma.
Violence by gangs such as the Mara Salvatrucha drives many of the refugees from their homes in Central America's Northern Triangle of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. But there has also been a wave of political turmoil, with bloody crackdowns on protesters in Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela over the past year. The top source countries of refugees arriving in Mexico are now Honduras, followed by Venezuela and then El Salvador, according to the UNHCR.
Luis Andara, 57, fled his home in Nicaragua and is applying for refugee status in Mexico, saying he has been targeted for his family links to the political-military apparatus, while he himself is not a government supporter. "I got stuck in the middle," he says, standing in a river outside the church shelter and scrubbing himself down with soap. "I was followed and I was beat up badly, I was thrown from a 7-meter bridge. … My hand was separated from the arm, hanging from a little bit of flesh."
Free to Go in Mexico
In the United States, many refugees are kept in detention while their claims are processed, which can take months or even years. In Mexico, refugee claimants are left free, as long as they don't leave the state. "Here they treat you like a migrant, like a human. In the United States, they treat you like a criminal," says Elid Turcio, 38, who first applied for asylum in the United States but was rejected and is now applying in Mexico. He fled Honduras after his brother and parents were murdered by a drug trafficking gang.
U.S. courts deny the majority of asylum claims from Central Americans, rejecting 79 percent of those from El Salvador and 78 percent of those from Honduras between 2012 and 2017, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. In contrast, Mexico approved 64 percent of refugee claims from Salvadorans and 50 percent of those from Hondurans last year, according to the UNHCR.
U.S. courts demand that refugees show they are persecuted by the government or are targeted for being from a vulnerable minority, and generally do not accept those who are fleeing gangsters. This position was hardened by a June 11 ruling by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. "Asylum was never meant to solve all problems – even all serious problems – that people face every day all over the world," Sessions said.
In contrast in Mexico, refugee claims are usually only refused if there is not enough evidence of the threats themselves or if the claimant has a serious criminal record, explains an official from the Mexican Refugee Commission.
Many of the refugees arriving in Mexico sneak into the country from Guatemala, walking over the hills or crossing one of the rivers, before making their application. In the Guatemalan border town of Tecun Uman, oarsmen charge about $1.30 to cross into Mexico on a raft built with tractor tires, and all day rafts full of people can be seen. Most are local residents who go into Mexico to do their shopping, an informal cross-border commerce that has long been tolerated. Migrants and refugees move among them. They then can travel by bus to the larger city of Tapachula, although Mexican immigration officials run sporadic checkpoints on the road.
The entry of refugees and migrants has swelled Tapachula, with makeshift barrios emerging on the outskirts. The center is bustling with people from across the globe, not only from Latin America but as far afield as Africa. David Eca, 33, came from the Congo, where he says his father had been murdered in political violence. Flying to Ecuador, he traveled by land through South and Central America and aims to reach the United States and apply for asylum there.
Those seeking refuge in Mexico are not given work permits while their applications are processed, and many rely on charity while some beg for money. Others work without papers, toiling in coffee fields or construction sites. One pickup truck arrived by the church shelter to take a group to work for the promise of 150 pesos, or about $8, for the day.
Mexico's Own Violence
Mexico also has its own serious problems of criminal violence, which can be as bad as in the countries people have run from. In 2017, journalist Edwin Rivera fled Honduras after threats but was then murdered in Veracruz, Mexico. Cartels here have also kidnapped large groups of Central Americans to demand ransom money, pressuring them to call family members they have in the United States. In the run-up to the July 1 national elections, more than 100 candidates or party militants were murdered.
"Mexico is not safe for those who flee violence," Doctors Without Borders said in a June 26 statement. "The impossibility of getting asylum in the United States would leave tens of thousands in a situation of extreme vulnerability."
Alongside refugees and migrants looking for work, some criminals also slip into southern Mexico without papers. There are currently more than 100 foreigners in Tapachula's prison out of a total population of about 900. Most are undocumented Central Americans, including members of the rival Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs, says public defense lawyer Luis Del Rosario.
Del Rosario says he labors for a fair treatment for all the defendants, whatever the nationality.
"We can't be indifferent about Central Americans. On the contrary, we have to give them the same respect and attention that we want for ourselves," he says. "It is like if Mexicans go to the United States, we want respect. We have to start here."
Some others in the city, however, are less tolerant. Restaurant owner Angel Brindis says the Mexican government should work harder to stop foreigners entering who come to commit crimes rather than work, and has had to defend himself from robbery and assault on various occasions. "They come outside the business, drugged up or drunk, looking for problems," he says. "They hold up stores with knives and guns, they demand money from people walking by."
The presence of Central American gang members also makes refugees concerned they could run into members of the same mobs they are fleeing. Turcio, who ran from Honduras, says he avoids the center of Tapachula so he is not seen by anyone connected to the drug trafficking gang who murdered his family.
Cashpal, the Salvadoran refugee, says she has received warm treatment in Mexico. When her family arrived at the river, the oarsman took pity on them, providing free transit and money for the bus.
Fear has followed her, but she says her faith gives her the strength to keep going.
"I trust in God that everything will be all right," she says. "But tomorrow, we don't know if we are going to wake up alive or what."
DAVE FREEMAN, HERE IS THE ARTICLE YOU SUGGESTED I CHECK OUT
Arizona History: The 1917 Bisbee ‘Deportation’ Of Striking Miners
By Albert Vetere Lannon
Arizona Daily Independent
July 11, 2018
With the controversy today about immigration, it might be worth remembering that, on this date 101 years ago, mine owners, law enforcement and deputized vigilantes rounded up and “deported” some 1200 copper miners from Bisbee, Arizona, to the New Mexico desert. Most were immigrant strikers of many nationalities. They, along with native-born Americans, were herded into cattle cars at gun point. Children were separated from their parents. Their crime? Withholding their labor because the bosses would not give them safe working conditions, and because they wanted to be paid in American money instead of company scrip redeemable only at the overpriced company store.
Copper camps and company towns were racially segregated, with white Americans working the best-paying jobs. The early Western Federation of Miners union excluded Mexicans, Italians, Chinese and others, but a wildcat strike led by Mexican and Italian miners protesting wage cuts at the Phelps Dodge Morenci mine in 1903 resulted in convictions of both groups for “rioting.” Some went to Yuma Territorial Prison, others were deported back to their native countries.
“Dark as a dungeon” was how miners described their workplace in the 2,500 miles of tunnels that lie below the surface of Bisbee’s hills. George Warren staked the first claim in 1877, but lost it gambling. San Francisco’s DeWitt Bisbee and his investors bought the claims in 1880 and the town, incorporated in 1902, was named for him although Bisbee never set foot there.
By 1910 Bisbee’s 25,000 residents came from 35 mostly-immigrant ethnic groups, and the Cochise County seat was relocated there from Tombstone. The Copper Queen and related mines produced eight billion pounds of copper, 102 million ounces of silver, 2.8 million ounces of gold, 30 million pounds of lead, and 371 million pounds of zinc before closing in 1975.
On June 27, 1917, Bisbee miners set aside racial and ethnic differences and went on strike for better safety conditions and for the right to be paid in full with American money without the company coupons redeemable only at the company store. The United States had entered World War I three months earlier and employers were using patriotism as an excuse to attack unions, especially the anti-capitalist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) which led the strike. The IWW, popularly known as the Wobblies, declared in its constitution that, “The working class and the employing class have nothing in common!” Phelps Dodge management agreed.
Cochise County Sheriff Harry Wheeler and Phelps Dodge General Manager Walter Douglas secretly deputized and armed 2,200 men, dubbing them the Loyalty League. On July 12, 1917, Sheriff Wheeler issued a statement: “I have formed a sheriff’s posse of 1,200 men in Bisbee and 1,000 in Douglas, all loyal Americans, for the purpose of arresting, on charges of vagrancy, treason, and of being disturbers of the peace in Cochise County, all those strange men who have congregated here from other parts and sections for the purpose of harassing and intimidating all men who desire to pursue their daily toil…This is no labor trouble…but a direct attempt to embarrass and injure the government of the United States.”
The Loyalty League, wearing white arm bands for identification, deployed into the Bisbee hills early on July 12, marching striking miners out of their homes at gunpoint. One IWW miner, James Brew, challenged the vigilantes and shot Loyalty Leaguer Orson McCrae dead before being himself gunned down.
Strikers were taken to a kangaroo court in a ball field. If they promised to return to work and were vouched for by a Loyalty Leaguer they were turned loose. Twelve hundred others were taken to cattle cars and box cars, locked in without food or water in summer temperatures of 112 degrees, and “deported” across the state line to New Mexico. The Bisbee Daily Review labeled the strikers “agitators, idlers, wreckers, traitors, spies and anarchists.”
Matt Hanhila, the seven-year-old child of immigrants from Finland, remembered that, “We were awakened by a loud knock on the door…I could see several men on our porch with rifles. They had come for my father.” Hanhila, who grew up to head Glendale Community College, watched his father, Felix, marched off and herded into a cattle car. His mother was forced to sell their home for whatever they could get to join her husband.
In the internment center Matt Hanhila became known as “the littlest striker.” When finally allowed to leave the camp, the family went to Minnesota where Felix worked in the iron mines, returning to Bisbee in 1920 to work under a false name, along with other re-named former deportees. More than one striker had escaped the roundup when their wives told Loyalty Leaguers that their husbands had died recently.
In Columbus, New Mexico, the deportees occupied an abandoned Mexican internment center under the watchful eyes of the U.S. Army while in Bisbee guards were posted on rooftops with rifles to keep strikers from returning. The largest ethnic group of deportees were Mexican (229), followed by American (167), Serbian (82), Finnish (76), Irish (67), Austrian (40), Croatian (35), British (32), Montenegran (24), German (20), Swedish (18) and Dalmatian (14). Twenty-three other nationalities had single-digit numbers. In the eyes of Phelps Dodge and Sheriff Harry Wheeler they were all illegal immigrant criminals.
IWW organizer Frank Little visited the camp, and then moved on to a strike in Butte, Montana, where he was lynched by six masked men. More than 13,000 workers attended Little’s funeral procession but no one was ever arrested for the crime. Phelps Dodge set a determined anti-union course and began funding election campaigns by friendly legislators to spread its influence. In 1983 company president Richard Moolick decided to “kill the union” and took a three-year strike to do it, aided by Governor Bruce Babbitt calling out the National Guard to protect strikebreakers.
A personal note: My maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Finland who worked in the copper mines around Butte, Montana. His name was Isaac Bjorklund. He joined the Wobblies, and participated in several strikes. In one strike there was dynamiting of the mines – employer violence against strikers was sometimes answered with striker violence against property – and Isaac rushed back to Finland. He returned a few years later with a wife and a shortened name, Lund, to work in the Baltimore steel industry. That probably made him an “illegal immigrant,” along with Felix Hanhila and most of the 1200 Bisbee “deportees,” and perhaps the ancestors of some of you reading this article. Something to think about.
And employers and their political cronies considered just about any strike “illegal,” as the #Red4Ed teachers are accused of today. Something else to think about.
Note: A new independent movie, Bisbee ’17, is currently making the rounds of film festivals and is expected to open commercially in September.
By Albert Vetere Lannon
Arizona Daily Independent
July 11, 2018
With the controversy today about immigration, it might be worth remembering that, on this date 101 years ago, mine owners, law enforcement and deputized vigilantes rounded up and “deported” some 1200 copper miners from Bisbee, Arizona, to the New Mexico desert. Most were immigrant strikers of many nationalities. They, along with native-born Americans, were herded into cattle cars at gun point. Children were separated from their parents. Their crime? Withholding their labor because the bosses would not give them safe working conditions, and because they wanted to be paid in American money instead of company scrip redeemable only at the overpriced company store.
Copper camps and company towns were racially segregated, with white Americans working the best-paying jobs. The early Western Federation of Miners union excluded Mexicans, Italians, Chinese and others, but a wildcat strike led by Mexican and Italian miners protesting wage cuts at the Phelps Dodge Morenci mine in 1903 resulted in convictions of both groups for “rioting.” Some went to Yuma Territorial Prison, others were deported back to their native countries.
“Dark as a dungeon” was how miners described their workplace in the 2,500 miles of tunnels that lie below the surface of Bisbee’s hills. George Warren staked the first claim in 1877, but lost it gambling. San Francisco’s DeWitt Bisbee and his investors bought the claims in 1880 and the town, incorporated in 1902, was named for him although Bisbee never set foot there.
By 1910 Bisbee’s 25,000 residents came from 35 mostly-immigrant ethnic groups, and the Cochise County seat was relocated there from Tombstone. The Copper Queen and related mines produced eight billion pounds of copper, 102 million ounces of silver, 2.8 million ounces of gold, 30 million pounds of lead, and 371 million pounds of zinc before closing in 1975.
On June 27, 1917, Bisbee miners set aside racial and ethnic differences and went on strike for better safety conditions and for the right to be paid in full with American money without the company coupons redeemable only at the company store. The United States had entered World War I three months earlier and employers were using patriotism as an excuse to attack unions, especially the anti-capitalist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) which led the strike. The IWW, popularly known as the Wobblies, declared in its constitution that, “The working class and the employing class have nothing in common!” Phelps Dodge management agreed.
Cochise County Sheriff Harry Wheeler and Phelps Dodge General Manager Walter Douglas secretly deputized and armed 2,200 men, dubbing them the Loyalty League. On July 12, 1917, Sheriff Wheeler issued a statement: “I have formed a sheriff’s posse of 1,200 men in Bisbee and 1,000 in Douglas, all loyal Americans, for the purpose of arresting, on charges of vagrancy, treason, and of being disturbers of the peace in Cochise County, all those strange men who have congregated here from other parts and sections for the purpose of harassing and intimidating all men who desire to pursue their daily toil…This is no labor trouble…but a direct attempt to embarrass and injure the government of the United States.”
The Loyalty League, wearing white arm bands for identification, deployed into the Bisbee hills early on July 12, marching striking miners out of their homes at gunpoint. One IWW miner, James Brew, challenged the vigilantes and shot Loyalty Leaguer Orson McCrae dead before being himself gunned down.
Strikers were taken to a kangaroo court in a ball field. If they promised to return to work and were vouched for by a Loyalty Leaguer they were turned loose. Twelve hundred others were taken to cattle cars and box cars, locked in without food or water in summer temperatures of 112 degrees, and “deported” across the state line to New Mexico. The Bisbee Daily Review labeled the strikers “agitators, idlers, wreckers, traitors, spies and anarchists.”
Matt Hanhila, the seven-year-old child of immigrants from Finland, remembered that, “We were awakened by a loud knock on the door…I could see several men on our porch with rifles. They had come for my father.” Hanhila, who grew up to head Glendale Community College, watched his father, Felix, marched off and herded into a cattle car. His mother was forced to sell their home for whatever they could get to join her husband.
In the internment center Matt Hanhila became known as “the littlest striker.” When finally allowed to leave the camp, the family went to Minnesota where Felix worked in the iron mines, returning to Bisbee in 1920 to work under a false name, along with other re-named former deportees. More than one striker had escaped the roundup when their wives told Loyalty Leaguers that their husbands had died recently.
In Columbus, New Mexico, the deportees occupied an abandoned Mexican internment center under the watchful eyes of the U.S. Army while in Bisbee guards were posted on rooftops with rifles to keep strikers from returning. The largest ethnic group of deportees were Mexican (229), followed by American (167), Serbian (82), Finnish (76), Irish (67), Austrian (40), Croatian (35), British (32), Montenegran (24), German (20), Swedish (18) and Dalmatian (14). Twenty-three other nationalities had single-digit numbers. In the eyes of Phelps Dodge and Sheriff Harry Wheeler they were all illegal immigrant criminals.
IWW organizer Frank Little visited the camp, and then moved on to a strike in Butte, Montana, where he was lynched by six masked men. More than 13,000 workers attended Little’s funeral procession but no one was ever arrested for the crime. Phelps Dodge set a determined anti-union course and began funding election campaigns by friendly legislators to spread its influence. In 1983 company president Richard Moolick decided to “kill the union” and took a three-year strike to do it, aided by Governor Bruce Babbitt calling out the National Guard to protect strikebreakers.
A personal note: My maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Finland who worked in the copper mines around Butte, Montana. His name was Isaac Bjorklund. He joined the Wobblies, and participated in several strikes. In one strike there was dynamiting of the mines – employer violence against strikers was sometimes answered with striker violence against property – and Isaac rushed back to Finland. He returned a few years later with a wife and a shortened name, Lund, to work in the Baltimore steel industry. That probably made him an “illegal immigrant,” along with Felix Hanhila and most of the 1200 Bisbee “deportees,” and perhaps the ancestors of some of you reading this article. Something to think about.
And employers and their political cronies considered just about any strike “illegal,” as the #Red4Ed teachers are accused of today. Something else to think about.
Note: A new independent movie, Bisbee ’17, is currently making the rounds of film festivals and is expected to open commercially in September.
Saturday, July 14, 2018
WE ARE A NATION OF RACISTS AND THAT IS NOT GOING TO CHANGE
After having used the most forbidden word in the American language, Papa John said “Racism has no place in our society.”
At one time the word ’racist’ meant that one person or group considered another group to be inferior. However, over time the words ‘racist’ and ‘bigot’ have become synonymous.
In his apology for having used the most forbidden word in the American language – nigger – Papa John said, “Racism has no place in our society.” However that is far from the case. Papa John would have been correct had he said racism should have no place in our society. Why? Because we are a nation of racists.
Here is why we are a nation of racists:
A substantial number, if not a majority, of whites are bigoted against blacks, and many whites are bigoted against Latinos.
A significant number, if not a majority of blacks are bigoted against Latinos, Asians and Jews, and many blacks are bigoted against whites.
A substantial number of Latinos are bigoted against blacks.
Baptists are bigoted against Catholics.
Of course most of them will staunchly deny their bigotry.
Black hatred of Latinos and Asians stems from the fact that hard working Latino and Asian immigrants have taken jobs away from them. Black hatred of Jews is based on the belief that Jewish landlords and store owners in black neighborhoods are exploiting them.
Latino hatred of blacks is probably a backlash to black hatred of Latinos.
When I attended East Texas Baptist College (now East Texas Baptist University), American and World History courses contained a significant amount of anti-Catholic content.
Deep down in their hearts, if they would only admit it, many if not most whites are bigoted against blacks. There are a variety of reasons for this bigotry. Probably the most prevalent reason is a backlash against the daily media drumbeat of white racism. The Papa John use of the word ‘nigger’ is just one example.
Racism is quite common among police officers. The culture shock of working in minority communities, shootings at and of cops, and frequent confrontations with hostile and combative black men form the basis of this racism. To counter racism among cops, most states have enacted rules that require cops to undergo annual sensitivity training sessions.
I have talked to many police officers who attended mandatory racial sensitivity training sessions in which they were made to feel guilty of being bigoted against blacks. If they weren’t bigoted against blacks when they went into these sessions, they sure were when they came out of them.
I have also known a number of college educated cops who joined the force to make this a better world for minorities. Because of their experiences in dealing with blacks, it didn’t take long before they came to hate blacks. Even some black college educated officers used the word ‘nigger’ in referring to some black asshole who gave them a bad time.
It is not uncommon for a white person to have a number of black or Latino friends and still be bigoted against blacks and Latinos. And a black person can have a number of white friends and still be bigoted against whites.
Even government agencies and educational institutions practice a form of racism in that minorities are given positions that might otherwise have gone to more qualified whites. That form of racism id referred to as Affirmative Action.
So we might as well admit that we are a nation of racists and that is not going to change. All the media attention to racism is very likely counterproductive. The next time someone tells you, “I don’t have a racist bone in my body,” you can bet he’s not telling the truth.
At one time the word ’racist’ meant that one person or group considered another group to be inferior. However, over time the words ‘racist’ and ‘bigot’ have become synonymous.
In his apology for having used the most forbidden word in the American language – nigger – Papa John said, “Racism has no place in our society.” However that is far from the case. Papa John would have been correct had he said racism should have no place in our society. Why? Because we are a nation of racists.
Here is why we are a nation of racists:
A substantial number, if not a majority, of whites are bigoted against blacks, and many whites are bigoted against Latinos.
A significant number, if not a majority of blacks are bigoted against Latinos, Asians and Jews, and many blacks are bigoted against whites.
A substantial number of Latinos are bigoted against blacks.
Baptists are bigoted against Catholics.
Of course most of them will staunchly deny their bigotry.
Black hatred of Latinos and Asians stems from the fact that hard working Latino and Asian immigrants have taken jobs away from them. Black hatred of Jews is based on the belief that Jewish landlords and store owners in black neighborhoods are exploiting them.
Latino hatred of blacks is probably a backlash to black hatred of Latinos.
When I attended East Texas Baptist College (now East Texas Baptist University), American and World History courses contained a significant amount of anti-Catholic content.
Deep down in their hearts, if they would only admit it, many if not most whites are bigoted against blacks. There are a variety of reasons for this bigotry. Probably the most prevalent reason is a backlash against the daily media drumbeat of white racism. The Papa John use of the word ‘nigger’ is just one example.
Racism is quite common among police officers. The culture shock of working in minority communities, shootings at and of cops, and frequent confrontations with hostile and combative black men form the basis of this racism. To counter racism among cops, most states have enacted rules that require cops to undergo annual sensitivity training sessions.
I have talked to many police officers who attended mandatory racial sensitivity training sessions in which they were made to feel guilty of being bigoted against blacks. If they weren’t bigoted against blacks when they went into these sessions, they sure were when they came out of them.
I have also known a number of college educated cops who joined the force to make this a better world for minorities. Because of their experiences in dealing with blacks, it didn’t take long before they came to hate blacks. Even some black college educated officers used the word ‘nigger’ in referring to some black asshole who gave them a bad time.
It is not uncommon for a white person to have a number of black or Latino friends and still be bigoted against blacks and Latinos. And a black person can have a number of white friends and still be bigoted against whites.
Even government agencies and educational institutions practice a form of racism in that minorities are given positions that might otherwise have gone to more qualified whites. That form of racism id referred to as Affirmative Action.
So we might as well admit that we are a nation of racists and that is not going to change. All the media attention to racism is very likely counterproductive. The next time someone tells you, “I don’t have a racist bone in my body,” you can bet he’s not telling the truth.
I'M VEGAN SO YOU HAD BETTER FUCKING BE VEGAN TOO!
by Bob Walsh
WeWork is a company that sets up and operates shared work space. The company's 6,000 employees just got a memo from co-founder Miguel McKelvey informing them that the company will no longer cover meal expenses for any meals that include red meat, pork or poultry.
There is a waiver in the works for employees who have a religious or medical issue.
The company's revenue doubled last year, to $822 million, but it's net loss increased to $933 million.
Somehow I can't help but think that the management has a priority issue somewhere. Like maybe up their ass.
WeWork is a company that sets up and operates shared work space. The company's 6,000 employees just got a memo from co-founder Miguel McKelvey informing them that the company will no longer cover meal expenses for any meals that include red meat, pork or poultry.
There is a waiver in the works for employees who have a religious or medical issue.
The company's revenue doubled last year, to $822 million, but it's net loss increased to $933 million.
Somehow I can't help but think that the management has a priority issue somewhere. Like maybe up their ass.
TOO MANY CAMERAS AROUND TO ACT STUPIDLY
by Bob Walsh
This made the mainstream media a couple of days ago. There were three dramatis personae. One was a woman wearing a t-shirt with a Puerto Rican flag on it. One was a white man who engaged in some fairly serious "verbal assault" who was apparently too fucking stupid to know that Puerto Rico IS part of the United States. One was a cop, a Cook County, Ill. Forest Preserve Officer, one Patrick Connor.
The lady, Ms. Mia Irizarry, 24, asked Officer Connor for assistance, stating that she felt unsafe around her harasser, Timothy Trybus. Connor walked away from the scene, though later returned to speak to Trybus. Trybus told the cop to "shut the fuck up."
Connor resigned two days ago. Seems appropriate. Clearly the guy has some issues with confrontation. "Normal" people can be expected to have this characteristic. On-duty uniform police officers should not.
This made the mainstream media a couple of days ago. There were three dramatis personae. One was a woman wearing a t-shirt with a Puerto Rican flag on it. One was a white man who engaged in some fairly serious "verbal assault" who was apparently too fucking stupid to know that Puerto Rico IS part of the United States. One was a cop, a Cook County, Ill. Forest Preserve Officer, one Patrick Connor.
The lady, Ms. Mia Irizarry, 24, asked Officer Connor for assistance, stating that she felt unsafe around her harasser, Timothy Trybus. Connor walked away from the scene, though later returned to speak to Trybus. Trybus told the cop to "shut the fuck up."
Connor resigned two days ago. Seems appropriate. Clearly the guy has some issues with confrontation. "Normal" people can be expected to have this characteristic. On-duty uniform police officers should not.
THIS WILL CAUSE ANTIFA SOME GRIEF, IF IT STANDS UP IN COURT
by Bob Walsh
A bill in congress, titled "Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018" would, if passed into law, make it a very serious criminal offense for anyone who "injures, threatens, or intimidates any person....in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege" while wearing a mask. The penalty is a significant fine and up to 15 years as a guest of the people.
It was introduced by Representative Dan Donovan. WAY TO GO DUDE.
A bill in congress, titled "Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018" would, if passed into law, make it a very serious criminal offense for anyone who "injures, threatens, or intimidates any person....in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege" while wearing a mask. The penalty is a significant fine and up to 15 years as a guest of the people.
It was introduced by Representative Dan Donovan. WAY TO GO DUDE.
A HORSESHIT LAWSUIT IF THERE EVER WAS ONE
Parkland shooting survivors who were not injured file lawsuit against LEOs, other officials
By Rafael Olmeda
Sun Sentinel
July 12, 2018
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Broward deputies at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School violated the constitutional rights of the survivors of February’s school massacre by failing to stop Nikolas Cruz when he showed up on campus with murder on his mind, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday by students.
The 15 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High students, who were on campus during the deadly mass shooting, were not physically injured but suffered psychological trauma and were either inside classrooms in the 1200 building where classmates were killed or were on school grounds, said Attorney Solomon Radner.
The suit names as defendants: Broward Sheriff Scott Israel; BSO Capt. Jan Jordan, who oversaw operations during the shooting; Andrew Medina, a school monitor who spotted the gunman walking toward the 1200 building; and Broward Superintendent Robert Runcie.
The lawsuit also names retired school resource officer Scot Peterson, who was on the scene but did not enter the building when the shooting began.
A teary student who recently graduated, Audrey Diaz, said she had been looking forward to senior events such as prom and grad bash that those murdered did not have a chance to enjoy.
“Some of my friends who were killed that day weren’t able to go to those events,” Diaz, 18, said during a news conference. “We thought we were safe at school and would always be protected.”
The plaintiffs are all students who are referred to by their initials in the suit, which doesn’t identify Cruz by name. He is referred to simply as “the Shooter.”
A student who was searched and questioned hours before the shooting is accusing Peterson of illegally searching his backpack and questioning why he had so much money on him. The account stands in contrast to Peterson’s inaction while the shooting was taking place hours later, according to the suit.
Peterson was referred to as “Rod” by fellow law enforcement officers, according to the suit. The derogatory term is an acronym meaning “retired on-duty,” the suit claims.
Radner said police officers are generally regarded as heroes for putting their lives on the line, but some law enforcement officials in Parkland were ineffective during the massacre.
“This is a shot at specific law enforcement officials who failed the students on that particular day,” he said. “Law enforcement choked and the goal of this lawsuit is to ensure that this never happens again. If they choke and they cause people to die, they will have to face the music.”
Attorney Russell Williams, who represents Medina on other issues but has not yet been hired in connection with the new lawsuit, said Medina fulfilled his legal responsibilities according to his job description.
“He’s immune from prosecution, including civil action, as an individual unless the conduct at issue was committed with ill will, hatred, spite or evil intent,” Williams said. “There’s no way any expert is going to get on the stand and testify to that.”
The same immunity would apply to Peterson, said Williams. Efforts to reach Peterson’s attorney Wednesday were unsuccessful.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The delicate little darlings are suffering from psychological trauma. Come on, give me a break!
By Rafael Olmeda
Sun Sentinel
July 12, 2018
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Broward deputies at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School violated the constitutional rights of the survivors of February’s school massacre by failing to stop Nikolas Cruz when he showed up on campus with murder on his mind, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday by students.
The 15 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High students, who were on campus during the deadly mass shooting, were not physically injured but suffered psychological trauma and were either inside classrooms in the 1200 building where classmates were killed or were on school grounds, said Attorney Solomon Radner.
The suit names as defendants: Broward Sheriff Scott Israel; BSO Capt. Jan Jordan, who oversaw operations during the shooting; Andrew Medina, a school monitor who spotted the gunman walking toward the 1200 building; and Broward Superintendent Robert Runcie.
The lawsuit also names retired school resource officer Scot Peterson, who was on the scene but did not enter the building when the shooting began.
A teary student who recently graduated, Audrey Diaz, said she had been looking forward to senior events such as prom and grad bash that those murdered did not have a chance to enjoy.
“Some of my friends who were killed that day weren’t able to go to those events,” Diaz, 18, said during a news conference. “We thought we were safe at school and would always be protected.”
The plaintiffs are all students who are referred to by their initials in the suit, which doesn’t identify Cruz by name. He is referred to simply as “the Shooter.”
A student who was searched and questioned hours before the shooting is accusing Peterson of illegally searching his backpack and questioning why he had so much money on him. The account stands in contrast to Peterson’s inaction while the shooting was taking place hours later, according to the suit.
Peterson was referred to as “Rod” by fellow law enforcement officers, according to the suit. The derogatory term is an acronym meaning “retired on-duty,” the suit claims.
Radner said police officers are generally regarded as heroes for putting their lives on the line, but some law enforcement officials in Parkland were ineffective during the massacre.
“This is a shot at specific law enforcement officials who failed the students on that particular day,” he said. “Law enforcement choked and the goal of this lawsuit is to ensure that this never happens again. If they choke and they cause people to die, they will have to face the music.”
Attorney Russell Williams, who represents Medina on other issues but has not yet been hired in connection with the new lawsuit, said Medina fulfilled his legal responsibilities according to his job description.
“He’s immune from prosecution, including civil action, as an individual unless the conduct at issue was committed with ill will, hatred, spite or evil intent,” Williams said. “There’s no way any expert is going to get on the stand and testify to that.”
The same immunity would apply to Peterson, said Williams. Efforts to reach Peterson’s attorney Wednesday were unsuccessful.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The delicate little darlings are suffering from psychological trauma. Come on, give me a break!
TRUMP HAS ALWAYS CALLED THINGS EXACTLY HOW HE SEES THEM
Why do so many people hate Trump for telling truths they don’t want to hear? Isn’t that what ALL politicians are supposed to do?
By Piers Morgan
Daily Mail
July 13, 2018
President Donald Trump is the kind of guy who comes to your house for dinner and then half way through the meal says he hates your food.
Oh, and as he leaves, adds for good measure that he’s not very keen on your curtains either.
He wouldn’t see that as being rude so much as being brutally honest.
Plain, blunt speaking has been the hallmark of his bombastic, in-your-face behaviour throughout his 50-year career as a billionaire real estate tycoon.
I’ve known President Trump a long time and he’s always called things exactly how he sees them in the moment, regardless of any offence they may cause.
This tendency has made him a massive success in business, and helped land him the presidency of the United States.
It’s also made him one of the most divisive and polarising public figures in the history of Planet Earth.
But one thing it’s no longer credible to feel is ‘shock’ when he does it.
He ALWAYS does it.
So spare me all the risible ‘I’ve never been so offended!’ nonsense spewing forth from the usual suspects today at Trump’s tub-thumping tirade against his host Theresa May and her Brexit policy, as he arrived in Britain.
President Trump calls a spade a spade.
We know that, and we can expect that every single day of this extraordinary presidency.
And this morning, he didn’t just call a spade a spade so much as take the spade and smash it all over Theresa May’s political career, reputation and backbone.
He believes the British Prime Minister’s severely watered down new Brexit plan, rubber-stamped with her cabinet at her country home Chequers a week ago, is not actually Brexit because the EU would still retain some control over trade deals.
‘If we do a deal like that,’ Trump told The Sun, ‘we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK so it would probably kill the deal because we have enough difficulty with the European Union. We are cracking down right now on the European Union because they have not treated the United States fairly on trading.’
Trump said May ignored his advice on how to negotiate Brexit.
‘I would have done it much differently. I actually told Theresa May how to do it but she didn’t agree, she didn’t listen to me. She wanted to go a different route.’
Now, it obviously wasn’t particularly tactful for him to say this literally as Marine One, the presidential helicopter, landed at Blenheim Palace for last night’s fancy dinner hosted by the target of his attack.
But that doesn’t mean Trump isn’t right both in his sentiment and his timing.
Full disclosure: I voted Remain. I don’t think Britain should be leaving the EU and wish the 2016 Referendum vote had agreed with me.
But it didn’t.
Instead, a whopping 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU, and they understood that to mean we leave the club and all its rules, seizing back full control of our economy, our borders and our laws.
They understood that because May’s predecessor David Cameron, who was the Prime Minister who called the Referendum, repeatedly made this crystal clear in the run-up to the vote.
A major positive of life after Brexit, we were assured by the politicians who drove the Leave campaign, would be that we could trade completely freely with countries outside the EU and in particular America.
Yet May’s new plan doesn’t allow for that, however she tries to spin it.
As Trump told The Sun: ‘The deal she is striking is a much different deal than the one the people voted on. It was not the deal that was in the referendum.’
No, it’s not.
And no amount of frantic political spinning can change this unarguable fact.
It’s not just Trump who thinks that.
David Davis, May’s own Brexit Secretary, resigned within 48 hours of the plan being ‘agreed’, closely followed by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
They too believe this plan does not amount to Brexit and that it’s a betrayal of the democratic will of the majority who voted for it.
I agree with them, even if personally I hope we end up with a deal so fudged it’s like we never really left.
Just as I also agreed with Trump’s scathing criticism earlier this week of America’s NATO colleagues for not paying their proper bills on defence.
It’s absolutely disgraceful that Germany, the biggest country in Europe, pays just 1.2% of its GDP on defence (compared to America’s 3.8%), yet rakes in billions from Russian gas supplies – empowering Vladimir Putin, who many view as the biggest security threat to Europe.
Trump’s rhetoric may be inflammatory, his tweets may be provocative and occasionally insulting, and some of his policies like the recent immigrant child separation scandal have been disgraceful, but that doesn’t negate his right to criticise his friends when they’re wrong.
Isn’t that what proper friends so?
I certainly do that to my friends, and I expect them to do the same to me, so long as it is delivered without personal abuse.
Theresa May has boxed herself into a predictably awful place.
Her new Brexit plan is deeply unpopular with everyone – from the EU to Remainers who don’t think she’s gone far enough and Brexiters who don’t think she’s gone far enough.
So as things stand, Britain is heading off an enormous, historic cliff in a few months time with huge new doubt over its ability to use its biggest parachute – a big new trade deal with the U.S. - for a soft, safe landing.
In these circumstances, it’s not rude and offensive of Trump to tell her straight what the reality is – it’s a cold, hard and vitally important truth.
And isn’t there a wondrously delicious irony that all those screaming ‘Don’t be so rude, Mr Trump!’’ are the same ones gleefully supporting the absurd, pathetic 20ft orange baby Trump balloon that flew over Parliament today?
For sheer breath-taking rudeness, mocking the leader of our No1 ally in such a childish, pitiful way takes some beating.
Yet it’s entirely consistent with the rank hypocrisy that surrounds so much of the Trump-bashing agenda.
The same people who fiercely defended President Barack Obama when he urged Britain to vote Remain in the referendum are now furiously condemning Trump for ‘sticking his nose into Brexit’.
And the anti-Trump protests today are substantially bigger than anything seen for the recent visits to the same city by President Erdogan of Turkey and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia – two men who make Trump look like a choirboy when it comes to their dictatorial, war-mongering, human rights abusing, women and gay oppressing regimes.
I’m glad President Trump has come to Britain and given my Prime Minister some home truths.
It’s the perfect time for him to do it.
If she has any sense, she’ll pour him a cup of tea and listen to him.
EDITOR’S NOTE: People don’t hate Trump for telling truths they don’t want to hear, they hate him for defeating Hillary.
By Piers Morgan
Daily Mail
July 13, 2018
President Donald Trump is the kind of guy who comes to your house for dinner and then half way through the meal says he hates your food.
Oh, and as he leaves, adds for good measure that he’s not very keen on your curtains either.
He wouldn’t see that as being rude so much as being brutally honest.
Plain, blunt speaking has been the hallmark of his bombastic, in-your-face behaviour throughout his 50-year career as a billionaire real estate tycoon.
I’ve known President Trump a long time and he’s always called things exactly how he sees them in the moment, regardless of any offence they may cause.
This tendency has made him a massive success in business, and helped land him the presidency of the United States.
It’s also made him one of the most divisive and polarising public figures in the history of Planet Earth.
But one thing it’s no longer credible to feel is ‘shock’ when he does it.
He ALWAYS does it.
So spare me all the risible ‘I’ve never been so offended!’ nonsense spewing forth from the usual suspects today at Trump’s tub-thumping tirade against his host Theresa May and her Brexit policy, as he arrived in Britain.
President Trump calls a spade a spade.
We know that, and we can expect that every single day of this extraordinary presidency.
And this morning, he didn’t just call a spade a spade so much as take the spade and smash it all over Theresa May’s political career, reputation and backbone.
He believes the British Prime Minister’s severely watered down new Brexit plan, rubber-stamped with her cabinet at her country home Chequers a week ago, is not actually Brexit because the EU would still retain some control over trade deals.
‘If we do a deal like that,’ Trump told The Sun, ‘we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK so it would probably kill the deal because we have enough difficulty with the European Union. We are cracking down right now on the European Union because they have not treated the United States fairly on trading.’
Trump said May ignored his advice on how to negotiate Brexit.
‘I would have done it much differently. I actually told Theresa May how to do it but she didn’t agree, she didn’t listen to me. She wanted to go a different route.’
Now, it obviously wasn’t particularly tactful for him to say this literally as Marine One, the presidential helicopter, landed at Blenheim Palace for last night’s fancy dinner hosted by the target of his attack.
But that doesn’t mean Trump isn’t right both in his sentiment and his timing.
Full disclosure: I voted Remain. I don’t think Britain should be leaving the EU and wish the 2016 Referendum vote had agreed with me.
But it didn’t.
Instead, a whopping 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU, and they understood that to mean we leave the club and all its rules, seizing back full control of our economy, our borders and our laws.
They understood that because May’s predecessor David Cameron, who was the Prime Minister who called the Referendum, repeatedly made this crystal clear in the run-up to the vote.
A major positive of life after Brexit, we were assured by the politicians who drove the Leave campaign, would be that we could trade completely freely with countries outside the EU and in particular America.
Yet May’s new plan doesn’t allow for that, however she tries to spin it.
As Trump told The Sun: ‘The deal she is striking is a much different deal than the one the people voted on. It was not the deal that was in the referendum.’
No, it’s not.
And no amount of frantic political spinning can change this unarguable fact.
It’s not just Trump who thinks that.
David Davis, May’s own Brexit Secretary, resigned within 48 hours of the plan being ‘agreed’, closely followed by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
They too believe this plan does not amount to Brexit and that it’s a betrayal of the democratic will of the majority who voted for it.
I agree with them, even if personally I hope we end up with a deal so fudged it’s like we never really left.
Just as I also agreed with Trump’s scathing criticism earlier this week of America’s NATO colleagues for not paying their proper bills on defence.
It’s absolutely disgraceful that Germany, the biggest country in Europe, pays just 1.2% of its GDP on defence (compared to America’s 3.8%), yet rakes in billions from Russian gas supplies – empowering Vladimir Putin, who many view as the biggest security threat to Europe.
Trump’s rhetoric may be inflammatory, his tweets may be provocative and occasionally insulting, and some of his policies like the recent immigrant child separation scandal have been disgraceful, but that doesn’t negate his right to criticise his friends when they’re wrong.
Isn’t that what proper friends so?
I certainly do that to my friends, and I expect them to do the same to me, so long as it is delivered without personal abuse.
Theresa May has boxed herself into a predictably awful place.
Her new Brexit plan is deeply unpopular with everyone – from the EU to Remainers who don’t think she’s gone far enough and Brexiters who don’t think she’s gone far enough.
So as things stand, Britain is heading off an enormous, historic cliff in a few months time with huge new doubt over its ability to use its biggest parachute – a big new trade deal with the U.S. - for a soft, safe landing.
In these circumstances, it’s not rude and offensive of Trump to tell her straight what the reality is – it’s a cold, hard and vitally important truth.
And isn’t there a wondrously delicious irony that all those screaming ‘Don’t be so rude, Mr Trump!’’ are the same ones gleefully supporting the absurd, pathetic 20ft orange baby Trump balloon that flew over Parliament today?
For sheer breath-taking rudeness, mocking the leader of our No1 ally in such a childish, pitiful way takes some beating.
Yet it’s entirely consistent with the rank hypocrisy that surrounds so much of the Trump-bashing agenda.
The same people who fiercely defended President Barack Obama when he urged Britain to vote Remain in the referendum are now furiously condemning Trump for ‘sticking his nose into Brexit’.
And the anti-Trump protests today are substantially bigger than anything seen for the recent visits to the same city by President Erdogan of Turkey and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia – two men who make Trump look like a choirboy when it comes to their dictatorial, war-mongering, human rights abusing, women and gay oppressing regimes.
I’m glad President Trump has come to Britain and given my Prime Minister some home truths.
It’s the perfect time for him to do it.
If she has any sense, she’ll pour him a cup of tea and listen to him.
EDITOR’S NOTE: People don’t hate Trump for telling truths they don’t want to hear, they hate him for defeating Hillary.
DISPARITY IN SENTENCING CORRECTED
2 men stole a debit card and baseball cards - 1 was out in 3 years, the other got life
By Mike Perlstein
WWL TV
July 13, 2018
It was the sound of the prison gates closing behind him that made Troy Ellis finally realize the gravity of his situation.
“When I got to Angola, that's when it hit me,” said the 55-year-old Ellis. “And it really hit me hard because I didn't know what to do.”
Ellis was convicted for his role in a small-time burglary, but a string of prior drug convictions made him a repeat offender. The district attorney's office decided to increase his sentence under the multiple offender law and then-Judge Julien Parker judge gave him the maximum: life without parole.
Ellis' sister, Venita LaCroix, could not accept that prison would be the final chapter in her brother's life. So when the legal remedies reached a dead end, she called WWL-TV.
An Eyewitness Investigation that aired in April 2014 revealed that Ellis’ co-defendant, Patrick Constantin, confessed to his role in the 2012 burglary, a break-in that netted a debit card and a baseball card collection that was later sold for $80.
Constantin, who had a similar rap sheet, pleaded guilty and was out of prison in less than three years.
Troubled by the disparity, District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro agreed to meet with Ellis’ family. They made a strong impression.
“The family came to me and talked and said, ‘Look, we'd like you to reconsider this. We'd like you to look at this sentence,’ ” Cannizzaro said. “Sometimes the families do a very, very good job negotiating on behalf of their loved ones.”
In a rare move, Cannizzaro agreed to a reduced sentence. Ellis was granted parole and, two weeks ago, he was released to the hugs and smiles of his family.
“The lady at the prison called and she said Troy's about to be released,” LaCroix said. “I said, what time can I pick him up?”
Ellis said he was overcome by emotion to see his family waiting for him outside the gates of Dixon Correctional Institute in Jackson, La.
“Man, I wanted to cry but I was holding it in. Just coming out from all that long suffering I did in there,” Ellis said.
Ellis' release is not the most remarkable part of his turnaround story. That comes from what he has done with his new-found freedom.
Since his release, Ellis volunteers several days a week at the New Orleans Mission, one of the city's largest homeless shelters. In addition to feeding the homeless and hungry, Ellis counsels and prays with people battling the same drug demons he battled, even as he gets back on his own feet after eight years behind bars.
“I've been through that, so if I could talk to them about the things I've been through I probably could help them,” he said.
On other days, Ellis volunteers as part of a community outreach program. The rest of the time, he’s living with his sister in Slidell and attending church in Pearl River.
“He went straight from the jailhouse straight to Bible study,” LaCroix said.
Ellis said it's all part of a pact he made with God when he was locked up. He said that, eventually, he’d like to start his own ministry.
“I was just having a vision of the pastor teaching me the word how to go out and support others,” he said.
By Mike Perlstein
WWL TV
July 13, 2018
It was the sound of the prison gates closing behind him that made Troy Ellis finally realize the gravity of his situation.
“When I got to Angola, that's when it hit me,” said the 55-year-old Ellis. “And it really hit me hard because I didn't know what to do.”
Ellis was convicted for his role in a small-time burglary, but a string of prior drug convictions made him a repeat offender. The district attorney's office decided to increase his sentence under the multiple offender law and then-Judge Julien Parker judge gave him the maximum: life without parole.
Ellis' sister, Venita LaCroix, could not accept that prison would be the final chapter in her brother's life. So when the legal remedies reached a dead end, she called WWL-TV.
An Eyewitness Investigation that aired in April 2014 revealed that Ellis’ co-defendant, Patrick Constantin, confessed to his role in the 2012 burglary, a break-in that netted a debit card and a baseball card collection that was later sold for $80.
Constantin, who had a similar rap sheet, pleaded guilty and was out of prison in less than three years.
Troubled by the disparity, District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro agreed to meet with Ellis’ family. They made a strong impression.
“The family came to me and talked and said, ‘Look, we'd like you to reconsider this. We'd like you to look at this sentence,’ ” Cannizzaro said. “Sometimes the families do a very, very good job negotiating on behalf of their loved ones.”
In a rare move, Cannizzaro agreed to a reduced sentence. Ellis was granted parole and, two weeks ago, he was released to the hugs and smiles of his family.
“The lady at the prison called and she said Troy's about to be released,” LaCroix said. “I said, what time can I pick him up?”
Ellis said he was overcome by emotion to see his family waiting for him outside the gates of Dixon Correctional Institute in Jackson, La.
“Man, I wanted to cry but I was holding it in. Just coming out from all that long suffering I did in there,” Ellis said.
Ellis' release is not the most remarkable part of his turnaround story. That comes from what he has done with his new-found freedom.
Since his release, Ellis volunteers several days a week at the New Orleans Mission, one of the city's largest homeless shelters. In addition to feeding the homeless and hungry, Ellis counsels and prays with people battling the same drug demons he battled, even as he gets back on his own feet after eight years behind bars.
“I've been through that, so if I could talk to them about the things I've been through I probably could help them,” he said.
On other days, Ellis volunteers as part of a community outreach program. The rest of the time, he’s living with his sister in Slidell and attending church in Pearl River.
“He went straight from the jailhouse straight to Bible study,” LaCroix said.
Ellis said it's all part of a pact he made with God when he was locked up. He said that, eventually, he’d like to start his own ministry.
“I was just having a vision of the pastor teaching me the word how to go out and support others,” he said.
FLIPPING COIN NOT WHAT IS MEANT BY OFFICER DISCRETION
'Coin-flip arrest' uncovered in 11Alive investigation | Officers forced to turn in their guns and their badges
By Brendan Keefe
11Alive
July 12, 2018
The 11Alive Investigators have discovered that Roswell officers recently jailed a woman over a coin flip. Now, amid our investigation, both officers are on administrative leave.
Heads, you're released and tails you go to jail - those were the odds Sarah Webb faced in a traffic stop in April. But she didn't know about the police coin flip until we told her.
Two officers involved were forced to turn in their guns and their badges right after Roswell police learned The Investigators were on the case.
Sarah Webb was stopped for speeding past a Roswell cruiser. Officer Courtney Brown added a charge of reckless driving because of the wet pavement but asked fellow officers what she should do.
"What do you think?" another responding officer, Kristee Wilson, said on body camera footage.
Brown responded that she didn't have speed detection. The other officer pointed out she also didn't have any tickets. So Brown opened a coin flip app on her phone. These were the moments that followed.
Officer Wilson: “A (arrest) head, R (release) tail.”
Officer Brown: “OK (sound of coin flip) laugh.”
Officer Wilson: “This is tail right?”
Officer Brown: “Yeah. So release?”
Officer Wilson: “23 (code for arrest).”
Officer Brown: “Michael Jordan? (laugh). Alright, so I’ve got too fast (laugh) for conditions, reckless..”
With Webb still in her car, she had no idea she had just lost a coin flip that would take her freedom. She was handcuffed and placed in the back of the police cruiser crying. She didn't even find out about the fateful flip until The Investigators contacted her.
"Wow, these people put my freedom in the hands of a coin flip," she said. "And that's disgusting."
We were in court on Monday when Webb's charges were thrown out. The prosecutor dismissed the case and spoke to Webb.
"She said, 'I have watched the videos and I absolutely refuse to prosecute this case'," Webb said.
This traffic stop happened in early April, but Roswell didn't put officers Brown and Wilson on administrative leave before 11Alive started asking questions two months later. An internal affairs investigation is already underway.
By Brendan Keefe
11Alive
July 12, 2018
The 11Alive Investigators have discovered that Roswell officers recently jailed a woman over a coin flip. Now, amid our investigation, both officers are on administrative leave.
Heads, you're released and tails you go to jail - those were the odds Sarah Webb faced in a traffic stop in April. But she didn't know about the police coin flip until we told her.
Two officers involved were forced to turn in their guns and their badges right after Roswell police learned The Investigators were on the case.
Sarah Webb was stopped for speeding past a Roswell cruiser. Officer Courtney Brown added a charge of reckless driving because of the wet pavement but asked fellow officers what she should do.
"What do you think?" another responding officer, Kristee Wilson, said on body camera footage.
Brown responded that she didn't have speed detection. The other officer pointed out she also didn't have any tickets. So Brown opened a coin flip app on her phone. These were the moments that followed.
Officer Wilson: “A (arrest) head, R (release) tail.”
Officer Brown: “OK (sound of coin flip) laugh.”
Officer Wilson: “This is tail right?”
Officer Brown: “Yeah. So release?”
Officer Wilson: “23 (code for arrest).”
Officer Brown: “Michael Jordan? (laugh). Alright, so I’ve got too fast (laugh) for conditions, reckless..”
With Webb still in her car, she had no idea she had just lost a coin flip that would take her freedom. She was handcuffed and placed in the back of the police cruiser crying. She didn't even find out about the fateful flip until The Investigators contacted her.
"Wow, these people put my freedom in the hands of a coin flip," she said. "And that's disgusting."
We were in court on Monday when Webb's charges were thrown out. The prosecutor dismissed the case and spoke to Webb.
"She said, 'I have watched the videos and I absolutely refuse to prosecute this case'," Webb said.
This traffic stop happened in early April, but Roswell didn't put officers Brown and Wilson on administrative leave before 11Alive started asking questions two months later. An internal affairs investigation is already underway.
Friday, July 13, 2018
THREE UNGRATEFUL OHIO COPS
Stormy Daniels busted for smacking three undercover cops in their faces with her bare boobs
On Thursday night, Stormy Daniels was performing at the Sirens strip club in Columbus, Ohio. Her performance was interrupted when she got busted for allegedly smacking three undercover cops in their faces with her bare boobs.
Ohio has a law that prohibits semi-nude or nude performers from touching the patrons of a business like Sirens.
Her attorney claims Stormy was busted not gor what she did, but for who she was.
Shortly after Stormy bailed out on three misdemeanor charges, the prosecutor’s office dropped all charges against her.
As for those three cops, what a bunch of ungrateful bastards. There must be plenty of men who would gladly pay $100, or even $1,000, for Stormy to smack them in their faces with her ample (probably silicone) bare boobs. Or even much, much more ... just ask Donald Trump.
On Thursday night, Stormy Daniels was performing at the Sirens strip club in Columbus, Ohio. Her performance was interrupted when she got busted for allegedly smacking three undercover cops in their faces with her bare boobs.
Ohio has a law that prohibits semi-nude or nude performers from touching the patrons of a business like Sirens.
Her attorney claims Stormy was busted not gor what she did, but for who she was.
Shortly after Stormy bailed out on three misdemeanor charges, the prosecutor’s office dropped all charges against her.
As for those three cops, what a bunch of ungrateful bastards. There must be plenty of men who would gladly pay $100, or even $1,000, for Stormy to smack them in their faces with her ample (probably silicone) bare boobs. Or even much, much more ... just ask Donald Trump.
MY GOD, THESE DICKS ARE RUNNING THE GOVERNMENT
by Bob Walsh
I caught a little bit of the Peter Strzuck interview on the magic talking box yesterday morning. It reminded me a lot of a pack of ADHD developmentally disabled fifth graders fighting over whether Batman was more cool than Superman. If it hadn't been so potentially serious I would have laughed my ass off.
I caught a little bit of the Peter Strzuck interview on the magic talking box yesterday morning. It reminded me a lot of a pack of ADHD developmentally disabled fifth graders fighting over whether Batman was more cool than Superman. If it hadn't been so potentially serious I would have laughed my ass off.
KID TALKS ABOUT SAFETY IN SCHOOL, COPS COME BY TO SEIZE GUNS WITHOUT COURT ORDER
by Bob Walsh
Leonard Cottrell, Jr. has a 13-year old son. The young man is a student at the Millstone Township Middle School in the People's Republic of New Jersey. The young man is engaged in what is going on around him in the world and a few days ago happened to have a conversation with another student about what he considered to be mediocre security at their school. That conversation was overheard by a third student, who is apparently a snitch rat-bastard. That student told his parents, who called the school, who called the cops.
On June 13 six new bills became law in New Jersey. One of them allows firearms to be taken away from people who are deemed to be dangerous. On June 14 the state police came to the home of Mr. Cottrell, who is an Army veteran, without a court order, in an attempt to seize firearms from him. This was even though the cops admitted that the young man had said NOTHING that was even remotely threatening.
The cops in the end did not seize the guns and Cottrell physically moved them out of the jurisdiction of Millstone Township. The cops even searched the kids room and found nothing significant.
Leonard Cottrell, Jr. has a 13-year old son. The young man is a student at the Millstone Township Middle School in the People's Republic of New Jersey. The young man is engaged in what is going on around him in the world and a few days ago happened to have a conversation with another student about what he considered to be mediocre security at their school. That conversation was overheard by a third student, who is apparently a snitch rat-bastard. That student told his parents, who called the school, who called the cops.
On June 13 six new bills became law in New Jersey. One of them allows firearms to be taken away from people who are deemed to be dangerous. On June 14 the state police came to the home of Mr. Cottrell, who is an Army veteran, without a court order, in an attempt to seize firearms from him. This was even though the cops admitted that the young man had said NOTHING that was even remotely threatening.
The cops in the end did not seize the guns and Cottrell physically moved them out of the jurisdiction of Millstone Township. The cops even searched the kids room and found nothing significant.
TODDLER AND MOTHER REUNITED BY BORDER PATROL WHILE AGENTS GET PELTED WITH ROCKS IN RESCUE OF PREGNANT WOMAN
Border Patrol agents rescue abandoned 3-year-old girl in Texas
By Nicole Darrah
Fox News
July 11, 2018
A three-year-old girl who was reportedly abandoned as she was smuggled into the U.S. was rescued Monday by Border Patrol agents and the National Guard who searched the area looking for her.
Agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector of the southern border responded to reports that illegal immigrants could possibly be hiding underneath a bridge, according to a press release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Once agents responded to the scene, a woman told them that she was smuggled into the U.S., and her daughter — who was supposed to cross the border next — was missing.
Officials said the mother saw the smuggler and her daughter "both drifting down the [Rio Grande river] as she lost sight of them," and couldn't tell whether the two returned to Mexico or if her daughter had drifted away by herself.
Riverine units from the Harlingen Border Patrol Station and a helicopter from the National Guard were dispatched to search for the child, who was eventually located "walking on the river road."
The girl, according to Border Patrol, was found unharmed and was reunited with her mother.
__________
Border Patrol agents attacked with rocks while rescuing pregnant woman, officials say
By Nicole Darrah
Fox News
July 11, 2018
Border Patrol agents who were rescuing a distressed pregnant woman in Texas on Saturday were attacked by rocks thrown by an illegal immigrant, officials said.
Agents with the Weslaco Station saw a group of people who had previously been unable to enter the U.S. climbing a tree to enter the country through Custom and Border Protection's (CBP) Port of Entry in Progreso, the agency said in a Wednesday news release.
The agents reportedly approached the area, where they saw two people on top of a bridge and a 25-year-old female Mexican national at the bottom of the tree. The woman claimed she was pregnant and that her back hurt.
The Rio Grande Valley border agents began to assist the woman, and, according to CBP, one of the people on top of the bridge started throwing rocks at them.
The responding agents relocated the woman to a "safe location" and she was transported to a hospital. Those who allegedly threw the rocks "fled back to Mexico," the press release stated.
The woman will be processed once she's been cleared by medical staff, according to the agency.
By Nicole Darrah
Fox News
July 11, 2018
A three-year-old girl who was reportedly abandoned as she was smuggled into the U.S. was rescued Monday by Border Patrol agents and the National Guard who searched the area looking for her.
Agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector of the southern border responded to reports that illegal immigrants could possibly be hiding underneath a bridge, according to a press release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Once agents responded to the scene, a woman told them that she was smuggled into the U.S., and her daughter — who was supposed to cross the border next — was missing.
Officials said the mother saw the smuggler and her daughter "both drifting down the [Rio Grande river] as she lost sight of them," and couldn't tell whether the two returned to Mexico or if her daughter had drifted away by herself.
Riverine units from the Harlingen Border Patrol Station and a helicopter from the National Guard were dispatched to search for the child, who was eventually located "walking on the river road."
The girl, according to Border Patrol, was found unharmed and was reunited with her mother.
__________
Border Patrol agents attacked with rocks while rescuing pregnant woman, officials say
By Nicole Darrah
Fox News
July 11, 2018
Border Patrol agents who were rescuing a distressed pregnant woman in Texas on Saturday were attacked by rocks thrown by an illegal immigrant, officials said.
Agents with the Weslaco Station saw a group of people who had previously been unable to enter the U.S. climbing a tree to enter the country through Custom and Border Protection's (CBP) Port of Entry in Progreso, the agency said in a Wednesday news release.
The agents reportedly approached the area, where they saw two people on top of a bridge and a 25-year-old female Mexican national at the bottom of the tree. The woman claimed she was pregnant and that her back hurt.
The Rio Grande Valley border agents began to assist the woman, and, according to CBP, one of the people on top of the bridge started throwing rocks at them.
The responding agents relocated the woman to a "safe location" and she was transported to a hospital. Those who allegedly threw the rocks "fled back to Mexico," the press release stated.
The woman will be processed once she's been cleared by medical staff, according to the agency.
ABOUT THE PRESIDENT-ELECT OF MEXICO
“If there’s not a change in Mexico with Andres Manuel, then God help us.”
By ‘DD’
Borderland Beat
July 12, 2018
There can be no doubting that a major shift has taken place in Mexican politics.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador (better known by his initials as AMLO) is no longer one of the four candidates for President of Mexico, he is President Elect AMLO. Some are calling his election a "landslide". I think it is bigger than that - it was a 'Tsunami'. He won by over 53% of the vote, twice as many as his nearest competitor, the Pan candidate, and the PRI candidate only got 14%.
Moreno is the party that AMLO created just 4 years ago.
Winning the popular vote in all but one state and the mandate it will give him in office is not the only thing that will give him the power to achieve his goals. Moreno and his political allies called "Together We Will Make History" coalition picked the right name for their coalition. In addition to all their wins, thanks to the coalition for the first time the Mexican parliament has parity between men and women.
They will hold 303 of 500 seats in the lower house of the federal Congress and 70 of 128 in the Senate. They won 4 of the 7 Governor's seats that were on the ballots as well as congressional majorities in 12 states and countless mayoral and other municipal positions.
That means for the first time in 24 years, the president of Mexico will have a legislative majority.
The Morena-led coalition’s main congressional opposition will come from the For Mexico in Front alliance — which is led by the National Action Party (PAN) and nominated Ricardo Anaya for the presidency — but its capacity to spoil AMLO's agenda will be limited by having just 140 of the 500 and 38 or the 128 seats in the Senate.
While there is no doubt that a range of factors contributed to the PRI’s fall from grace (winning only 14% of Presidential vote) , perhaps one reason— with which the party’s name has also far too often been synonymous — outweighs all others: "corruption."
One of the victories that surprised me the most was Moreno winning in Mexico state Atlacomulco, the birthplace of President Enrique Peña Nieto and a political cradle of other noted Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) politicians. But more importantly it is the home base of a informal group of oligarchs and extremely wealthy elites known simply as the "Atlacomulco Group" that have dominated PRI (and thereby Mexican politics) and much of the Mexican economy for decades. (a good discussion of who is in the group and what they have done is in the BB story here). (you can bet the government contracts awarded to members of this group will be examined for being illicit or illegal). The UN has accused Grupo Atlacomulco of working against human rights in Mexico, by arguing against implementing human rights guarantees to groups such as criminals and women.
Most people think of bribery when they hear the word corruption, but bribery is peanuts compared to the corruption involved in illicit and illegal contracts, cost overruns, contracts for "ghost projects", and other shenanigans that the Atlacomulco Group have engaged in. (when AMLO is asked how he will get the money for all the social programs on his agenda, he answers that he will get if from rooting out corruption.
Example; When the govt. issues a contract to a oligarch to build a toll road that should pay for itself in 7 or 8 years but the oligarch is authorized to collect all the tolls for the next 40 years. We are talking billions of dollars from these sweetheart deals. As AMLO says "there is money out there and where there is money there is corruption and we will examine all those contracts for cronyism and corruption).
WHY AND HOW DID THIS HUGE DRAMATIC EVENT (the election) IN MEXICO'S HISTORY HAPPEN?
There are several answers to that question. Some pundits (including here on BB) have said that some of the citizens were "frustrated" with the current government because of the ongoing violence and corruption. I think that is an understatement. "some" was 30 million voters who were "furious", not "frustrated". They wanted and demanded a change.
Surprisingly the Trump factor did not have much influence on the election. According to exit polls despite Trumps derogatory rhetoric against Hispanics in general and Mexicans more specifically, The Wall, and Trumps treatment of immigrants attempting to migrate to the US, Mexicans seemed to ignore him in their decisions on voting (with the exception of thousands of Mexican-Americans who drove or came to the border and crossed the border to vote for AMLO).
OBRADOR THE MAN
Without a doubt the candidate, AMLO, was the biggest factor in the Tsunami that swept across Mexico on July 1. Most people outside of Mexico probably know that Lopez Obrador (AMLO) is the Mexican politician who ran for President twice before but this year won.
But they don't know much about the man himself or how much he is loved by much of the population. His description of himself and who he is was wrapped up in these simple promises he made to the people in his victory speech on election night; "I will never lie to you, I will never steal, and I will never betray the Mexican people".
Even his non supporters and critics acknowledge his honesty. One pundit who has been critical of AMLO's policies said;
“I don’t like his authoritarian streak and confrontational style.” But, he added, “he seems to me to be an honest man, which is a lot to say in these parts.”
“There has been nobody like him in modern Mexican politics,” political analyst Jesús Silva-Herzog Márquez has said. . “What is happening here is not normal.” At least part of what Silva-Herzog was talking about was the bond AMLO had built with the "the people". Most of the crowds that would engulf him seemingly everywhere he went were poor and many living in poverty and some in extreme poverty. When asked why the supported him the most common answers were "honest,” “tenacious,” and “of the people.”
To give an idea how broad and deep his election was and that it wasn't just poor uneducated people consider this; Lopez Obrador got 30 million votes in the election; This is much more than any contemporary president. Pena Nieto six years ago got 19 million. Calderon around the same, 18 million in 2006 and Fox got 15 million in 2000.
During the campaign there was a lot of media and pundit's fear that if AMLO won the election the Mexican economy would crater. (what with him being a socialist and progressive) But he is also a pragmatist. In the 2006 and 2012 election campaigns he did not court the business community. This time he did and he promised that he will respect the autonomy of the Central Bank, keep the country’s books balanced and inflation under control, and not raise taxes. But he has also insisted there will be no U-turn on his commitment to “put the poor first.” Three days after the election AMLO met in a 3 hour closed door session with the most powerful business organizations in Mexico.
Attendees at that meeting were the President of Mexico Grupo, President of Banomex, Chairman of Televisa and Carlos Slim along with other equally prominent and powerful business men.
Some pundits have written that AMLO is seeking to drag Latin America’s second largest economy back into the past. His response to them : “If this horror we’re living now is what they want to give us in the future, the past is preferable,” AMLO told one recent rally.
His persuasive powers must have worked because after the meeting Reuters wrote that "Mexico's business chiefs praised Obrador after a prickly campaign. The encounter between the powerful CCE (Business Coordinating Council) business lobby and Lopez Obrador comes as markets took the election of the self-styled radical in stride. At a news conference, CCE director Juan Pablo Castanon and Lopez Obrador said their meeting was characterized by certainty and trust.
The money markets must have liked the outcome of the election because the first week after the election the Mexican peso had it's best week in 6 years on the currency exchange markets. The peso’s value against the greenback increased by 3.92% last week, its greatest single-week gain since December 2011. The 3.92% surge also made the Mexican peso the best performing emerging nations currency last week. Living in Mexico but my income coming from the US I watch the currency markets very closely. I think they are a better harbinger of the economic health of an economy than the stock markets. (to the reader who posted a comment here on BB the week before the election that he had "unloaded all his pesos" and bought dollars and euros. you have my condolences)
The entire election may best described as emotional and not political. The people were less interested in his policies than their firm conviction that he is a good man who can fix a broken government.
The son of shopkeepers, López Obrador grew up in the waterlogged plains of the southeastern state of Tabasco. Even though he is considered an outsider (by the political elite) AMLO has been a politician all of his adult life.
His political career began in the 70's when he joined PRI, the only significant political party in Mexico at the time. He became an organizer for PRI and soon joined a faction within PRI that disagreed with leadership and worked to reform PRI from within.
One of his supporters remembers when she was in a group of volunteers he was organizing in Tabasco that as the meeting closed he told the group (mostly college kids) "Do not try to buy anyone's vote, We don't do that" She remembers that in casual conversation when the meeting was over someone asked him what his plans and ambitions were working for PRI. He told the group that "one day I will be President of Mexico". AMLO's core of supporters (in today's lexicon his "base") that have been loyal to him for 30 or 40 years was born and has grown from meetings such as that one.
When PRI began to adopt neo-liberal policies of globalism and neglecting the needs of the people AMLO left PRI in the late 80's and helped found the PRD party He was the PRD candidate in the 2006 and 2012 elections . In 2014 after the horrific tragedy involving what came to be known as the missing 43 (students from a teachers school that were disappeared and murdered) and no one in the opposition stood up to PRI for it's dastardly cover=up of what really happened AMLO got disgusted with all political parties and left PRD. He felt all the parties were corrupt. So he decided that he would create his own party that would only be accountable to him. So Morena was born and in just 4 years it swept him into the Presidency. Unheard of in politics.
The president-elect is no orator or political showman, but he does exude authenticity and conviction in a country where most politicians are assumed to be cynical opportunists. One of those convictions is his self-confidence in his power of persuasion.
One of his aides tells a story which illustrates that self-confidence. During his campaign they were traveling by car to an event in a small town out in the middle of nowhere in a torrential rain and the car had flat tire. AMLO got out of the car and flagged down a Volkswagen Beetle with 2 men in it and asked for ride. They had been following his every move since the start of the campaign. He knew they were spies for one of his rivals. His aide asked if he thought it was a good idea and was safe for him to be commuting with spies from the opposition. AMLO responded "It is no problem. They are just human beings and someday they will come over to our side." And he rode off with spies to the campaign event. (he didn't say but I guess the aide got out in the downpour of rain and changed the tire and proceeded to the event).
He has promised the people that he will lead Mexico’s deepest transformation since its 1910 revolution but without the violence. His entire platform as a candidate has consisted of 3 basic core principles; Root out corruption in government; reduce violence; and reduce poverty, especially among farmers and agricultural workers. He firmly believes those 3 goals are interrelated.
Obrador was criticized during the campaign for not disclosing details of how he was going to achieve his goals. In the last 12 years he has visited every municipality (like counties in US) in Mexico at least twice visiting with community leaders, business people, organizations of farmers, teachers, bankers, and just about any group that would sit down with him and discuss their ideas for solutions to the problems in their communities. Real grass roots feedback. So he has a vast amount of knowledge or problems and possible solutions.
What most people don't know is that he has teams of experts with knowledge of corruption, violence, and poverty combing Mexico for months before the election doing much the same thing. His plan is to sit down with the teams and with his knowledge and their input develop the details before he takes office on Dec. 1.
There is no one single simple solution to any of the 3 goals he want to achieve. There will be many approaches and plans implemented. His proposed Secretary of the Treasury has already drawn up a plan to help eliminate corruption government purchasing. It will be based on a model much like the retail giant Amazon uses. A data base will be established for vendors that sell to the govt. (they will be vetted) and prices negotiated by a dept in the Treasury. Any governmental entity that wants to make a purchase must go through the procedures set up in that Amazon model where the the agency will have options of what company to purchase from (price is already set). The purchase application will be examined and if approved the purchase will be monitored to ensure that the purchase is used as set forth in the application. Currently there are millions of dollars lost through "kickbacks", "ghost companies", diversion of materials from one project to another, etc.
He has already promised more modest proposals such as cutting his salary in half. Continuing to live in his modest house and turning the "official residence of the President" Los Pinos into a public park for the people to enjoy. He wants to eliminate or greatly reduce the pensions of high government officials. Currently when a member of Congress leaves his position in Congress and retires he receives a pension equal to his salary in Congress even if he has only served one term.
He also pledges to sell off the presidential planes and helicopters and take commercial flights instead and use the proceeds to help the poor. Asked by an interviewer during the campaign what he would do if his flight was delayed on the way to a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, he replied: “I will be late.”
AMNESTY AND CURBING VIOLENCE
I'll start with the elephant in the room, amnesty.
Probably the most frequent criticism of AMLO is the claim that he is going to give amnesty to the cartels and the cartel capos and all the killers. I have followed AMLO's campaign even before it was a official campaign. And everything I can find that he has said since he became the front runner in the campaign and it was obvious he was going to win and I have never seen a statement from him that he would give amnesty to cartel leaders.
What I have seen is he has said repeatedly that everything is on the table. Taken in context Andrés Manuel López Obrador floated the idea of an amnesty for drug cartel kingpins, saying he wanted a dialog on the drug war. At the time (Dec. 2017) he said that political maneuvering had already begun for the 1 July 2018 presidential election, but none of the parties or potential candidates had made curbing the violence a central plank of their platform. As he said he wanted to create a dialog about reducing violence. “If it is necessary … we will talk about granting amnesty so long as the victims and their families are willing,” he said.
He later told reporters: “We’ll propose it. I’m analyzing it. What I can say is that we will leave no issue without discussion if it has to do with peace and tranquility.” He certainly succeeded in creating a dialog when all the other candidates didn't want to talk about reducing violence because it was such a difficult problem to solve.
Out of that dialog he wanted to create came a proposal that would offer amnesty for those that were incarcerated for less serious crimes that did not involve violence. Many of those had received sentences that were disproportionate to the the crime for which they were convicted.
I said earlier that he firmly believes that his 3 basic agendas, reducing corruption, reducing violence and reducing poverty are inter-related. A study done a couple of years ago showed that 85% of inmates in prison had not completed high school.
Many of those low level offenders that would receive amnesty would have to meet certain conditions or they would would go back to jail. One of those conditions would be that would enroll in a similar to a program that would be offered to "nini's" (young people not in school and without a job.)
AMLO calls the program “becarios sÃ, sicarios no” (scholars yes, assassins no). Many "ninis" drop out of school because of poverty and they needed to work to help support their families and then they couldn't get a job or if the did it didn't last long and they were unemployed and couldn't find another. Others dropped out not because of poverty but just because they knew there were no good jobs for them in the labor market so why continue in school. All of those "ninis" are prime targets for recruitment by the cartels. A big labor pool for the cartels.
AMLO is proposing a massive social program to grant scholarships, grants, or stipends to finish high school, enroll in trade schools or universities to young people without a job and to those freed from prison under his amnesty plan for low level offenders. And they would be guaranteed a job on completion of the program. He thinks the business community will work with him for some jobs in the private sector (several leaders in the business community have agreed to apprenticeship programs) and some jobs are currently with the government.
He is also pursuing an idea of creating some new govt. jobs through some programs similar to FDR's programs created during the Great Depression of the 1930's like the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) and WPA (Public Works Administration). One proposal is for reforestation of the thousands of acres decimated by illegal logging. It is estimated that it would take 14 million trees and 7 years to reforest those acres. If some of it was in native trees for logging and some fruit trees to benefit the farmers, all the better. It would provide lots of jobs and pay for itself in time.
The program AMLO calls “becarios sÃ, sicarios no” would hurt the cartels by reducing their labor pool from which they recruit. It would help the economy and help reduce poverty by providing jobs. It is part of a framework that he believes is necessary to fight crime and violence. His philosophy is that you can't fight violence with violence. It just creates more violence, arguing that the drug war needs to be approached with a framework that includes a broader understanding of the problem.
Another example of building that framework are his plans to help farmers and the agricultural industry.
"Why do people grow poppies? Because they have nothing to eat," he said. "You can't fight violence with violence; this is an evil that we have to fight by doing good, and by creating economic growth, jobs and wellbeing." lfredo Acedo, spokesman for the National Union of Autonomous Regional Organizations (UNORCA), a confederation of campesino (farmer) groups has said that guaranteed prices and other kinds of support for rural producers proposed by Lopez Obrador could be key to fighting drug trafficking. "He's been very clear, we have to resolve poverty and marginalisation, and that in itself will fix the problem of organized crime and drug trafficking to a large degree," he said. "If the campesinos who grow opium poppies or marijuana, or work with drug trafficking in some other way, if the government offered them programs that guarantee their harvests will be bought and stored for fair prices that guarantee them subsistence - of course, they will stop working with drug traffickers
HOW CAN HE DO ALL THIS WHEN ALL HIS PREDECESSORS HAVE FAILED?
Even his supporters recognize it will take time to accomplish his goals of reducing corruption, lessening violence and alleviating poverty and question whether he can do it in a six year term. One answer he gives is I already have my cabinet in place and we will start working on Dec. when I am sworn in. I start my day at 6AM with a meeting of my security team to work on violence issues. Then I work a 16 hour day. That is the equivalent to 2 days work for normal people. So at the end of my 6 year term I will have worked the equivalent of 12 years.
He plans to pay for all these programs by reduction of corruption. Several studies have shown that Mexico loses up to 10% of GDP to corruption. AMLO says recovering that or even a big part of it will pay for his programs without any tax increases. He says "there's a lot of money out there and where there is money there is corruption and we will find it."
Lopez Obrador's many years spent seeking the Presidency were not motivated by seeking to acquire power, but to go down in History as having been a good President of Mexico. There have only been a few that left that legacy.
By ‘DD’
Borderland Beat
July 12, 2018
There can be no doubting that a major shift has taken place in Mexican politics.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador (better known by his initials as AMLO) is no longer one of the four candidates for President of Mexico, he is President Elect AMLO. Some are calling his election a "landslide". I think it is bigger than that - it was a 'Tsunami'. He won by over 53% of the vote, twice as many as his nearest competitor, the Pan candidate, and the PRI candidate only got 14%.
Moreno is the party that AMLO created just 4 years ago.
Winning the popular vote in all but one state and the mandate it will give him in office is not the only thing that will give him the power to achieve his goals. Moreno and his political allies called "Together We Will Make History" coalition picked the right name for their coalition. In addition to all their wins, thanks to the coalition for the first time the Mexican parliament has parity between men and women.
They will hold 303 of 500 seats in the lower house of the federal Congress and 70 of 128 in the Senate. They won 4 of the 7 Governor's seats that were on the ballots as well as congressional majorities in 12 states and countless mayoral and other municipal positions.
That means for the first time in 24 years, the president of Mexico will have a legislative majority.
The Morena-led coalition’s main congressional opposition will come from the For Mexico in Front alliance — which is led by the National Action Party (PAN) and nominated Ricardo Anaya for the presidency — but its capacity to spoil AMLO's agenda will be limited by having just 140 of the 500 and 38 or the 128 seats in the Senate.
While there is no doubt that a range of factors contributed to the PRI’s fall from grace (winning only 14% of Presidential vote) , perhaps one reason— with which the party’s name has also far too often been synonymous — outweighs all others: "corruption."
One of the victories that surprised me the most was Moreno winning in Mexico state Atlacomulco, the birthplace of President Enrique Peña Nieto and a political cradle of other noted Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) politicians. But more importantly it is the home base of a informal group of oligarchs and extremely wealthy elites known simply as the "Atlacomulco Group" that have dominated PRI (and thereby Mexican politics) and much of the Mexican economy for decades. (a good discussion of who is in the group and what they have done is in the BB story here). (you can bet the government contracts awarded to members of this group will be examined for being illicit or illegal). The UN has accused Grupo Atlacomulco of working against human rights in Mexico, by arguing against implementing human rights guarantees to groups such as criminals and women.
Most people think of bribery when they hear the word corruption, but bribery is peanuts compared to the corruption involved in illicit and illegal contracts, cost overruns, contracts for "ghost projects", and other shenanigans that the Atlacomulco Group have engaged in. (when AMLO is asked how he will get the money for all the social programs on his agenda, he answers that he will get if from rooting out corruption.
Example; When the govt. issues a contract to a oligarch to build a toll road that should pay for itself in 7 or 8 years but the oligarch is authorized to collect all the tolls for the next 40 years. We are talking billions of dollars from these sweetheart deals. As AMLO says "there is money out there and where there is money there is corruption and we will examine all those contracts for cronyism and corruption).
WHY AND HOW DID THIS HUGE DRAMATIC EVENT (the election) IN MEXICO'S HISTORY HAPPEN?
There are several answers to that question. Some pundits (including here on BB) have said that some of the citizens were "frustrated" with the current government because of the ongoing violence and corruption. I think that is an understatement. "some" was 30 million voters who were "furious", not "frustrated". They wanted and demanded a change.
Surprisingly the Trump factor did not have much influence on the election. According to exit polls despite Trumps derogatory rhetoric against Hispanics in general and Mexicans more specifically, The Wall, and Trumps treatment of immigrants attempting to migrate to the US, Mexicans seemed to ignore him in their decisions on voting (with the exception of thousands of Mexican-Americans who drove or came to the border and crossed the border to vote for AMLO).
OBRADOR THE MAN
Without a doubt the candidate, AMLO, was the biggest factor in the Tsunami that swept across Mexico on July 1. Most people outside of Mexico probably know that Lopez Obrador (AMLO) is the Mexican politician who ran for President twice before but this year won.
But they don't know much about the man himself or how much he is loved by much of the population. His description of himself and who he is was wrapped up in these simple promises he made to the people in his victory speech on election night; "I will never lie to you, I will never steal, and I will never betray the Mexican people".
Even his non supporters and critics acknowledge his honesty. One pundit who has been critical of AMLO's policies said;
“I don’t like his authoritarian streak and confrontational style.” But, he added, “he seems to me to be an honest man, which is a lot to say in these parts.”
“There has been nobody like him in modern Mexican politics,” political analyst Jesús Silva-Herzog Márquez has said. . “What is happening here is not normal.” At least part of what Silva-Herzog was talking about was the bond AMLO had built with the "the people". Most of the crowds that would engulf him seemingly everywhere he went were poor and many living in poverty and some in extreme poverty. When asked why the supported him the most common answers were "honest,” “tenacious,” and “of the people.”
To give an idea how broad and deep his election was and that it wasn't just poor uneducated people consider this; Lopez Obrador got 30 million votes in the election; This is much more than any contemporary president. Pena Nieto six years ago got 19 million. Calderon around the same, 18 million in 2006 and Fox got 15 million in 2000.
During the campaign there was a lot of media and pundit's fear that if AMLO won the election the Mexican economy would crater. (what with him being a socialist and progressive) But he is also a pragmatist. In the 2006 and 2012 election campaigns he did not court the business community. This time he did and he promised that he will respect the autonomy of the Central Bank, keep the country’s books balanced and inflation under control, and not raise taxes. But he has also insisted there will be no U-turn on his commitment to “put the poor first.” Three days after the election AMLO met in a 3 hour closed door session with the most powerful business organizations in Mexico.
Attendees at that meeting were the President of Mexico Grupo, President of Banomex, Chairman of Televisa and Carlos Slim along with other equally prominent and powerful business men.
Some pundits have written that AMLO is seeking to drag Latin America’s second largest economy back into the past. His response to them : “If this horror we’re living now is what they want to give us in the future, the past is preferable,” AMLO told one recent rally.
His persuasive powers must have worked because after the meeting Reuters wrote that "Mexico's business chiefs praised Obrador after a prickly campaign. The encounter between the powerful CCE (Business Coordinating Council) business lobby and Lopez Obrador comes as markets took the election of the self-styled radical in stride. At a news conference, CCE director Juan Pablo Castanon and Lopez Obrador said their meeting was characterized by certainty and trust.
The money markets must have liked the outcome of the election because the first week after the election the Mexican peso had it's best week in 6 years on the currency exchange markets. The peso’s value against the greenback increased by 3.92% last week, its greatest single-week gain since December 2011. The 3.92% surge also made the Mexican peso the best performing emerging nations currency last week. Living in Mexico but my income coming from the US I watch the currency markets very closely. I think they are a better harbinger of the economic health of an economy than the stock markets. (to the reader who posted a comment here on BB the week before the election that he had "unloaded all his pesos" and bought dollars and euros. you have my condolences)
The entire election may best described as emotional and not political. The people were less interested in his policies than their firm conviction that he is a good man who can fix a broken government.
The son of shopkeepers, López Obrador grew up in the waterlogged plains of the southeastern state of Tabasco. Even though he is considered an outsider (by the political elite) AMLO has been a politician all of his adult life.
His political career began in the 70's when he joined PRI, the only significant political party in Mexico at the time. He became an organizer for PRI and soon joined a faction within PRI that disagreed with leadership and worked to reform PRI from within.
One of his supporters remembers when she was in a group of volunteers he was organizing in Tabasco that as the meeting closed he told the group (mostly college kids) "Do not try to buy anyone's vote, We don't do that" She remembers that in casual conversation when the meeting was over someone asked him what his plans and ambitions were working for PRI. He told the group that "one day I will be President of Mexico". AMLO's core of supporters (in today's lexicon his "base") that have been loyal to him for 30 or 40 years was born and has grown from meetings such as that one.
When PRI began to adopt neo-liberal policies of globalism and neglecting the needs of the people AMLO left PRI in the late 80's and helped found the PRD party He was the PRD candidate in the 2006 and 2012 elections . In 2014 after the horrific tragedy involving what came to be known as the missing 43 (students from a teachers school that were disappeared and murdered) and no one in the opposition stood up to PRI for it's dastardly cover=up of what really happened AMLO got disgusted with all political parties and left PRD. He felt all the parties were corrupt. So he decided that he would create his own party that would only be accountable to him. So Morena was born and in just 4 years it swept him into the Presidency. Unheard of in politics.
The president-elect is no orator or political showman, but he does exude authenticity and conviction in a country where most politicians are assumed to be cynical opportunists. One of those convictions is his self-confidence in his power of persuasion.
One of his aides tells a story which illustrates that self-confidence. During his campaign they were traveling by car to an event in a small town out in the middle of nowhere in a torrential rain and the car had flat tire. AMLO got out of the car and flagged down a Volkswagen Beetle with 2 men in it and asked for ride. They had been following his every move since the start of the campaign. He knew they were spies for one of his rivals. His aide asked if he thought it was a good idea and was safe for him to be commuting with spies from the opposition. AMLO responded "It is no problem. They are just human beings and someday they will come over to our side." And he rode off with spies to the campaign event. (he didn't say but I guess the aide got out in the downpour of rain and changed the tire and proceeded to the event).
He has promised the people that he will lead Mexico’s deepest transformation since its 1910 revolution but without the violence. His entire platform as a candidate has consisted of 3 basic core principles; Root out corruption in government; reduce violence; and reduce poverty, especially among farmers and agricultural workers. He firmly believes those 3 goals are interrelated.
Obrador was criticized during the campaign for not disclosing details of how he was going to achieve his goals. In the last 12 years he has visited every municipality (like counties in US) in Mexico at least twice visiting with community leaders, business people, organizations of farmers, teachers, bankers, and just about any group that would sit down with him and discuss their ideas for solutions to the problems in their communities. Real grass roots feedback. So he has a vast amount of knowledge or problems and possible solutions.
What most people don't know is that he has teams of experts with knowledge of corruption, violence, and poverty combing Mexico for months before the election doing much the same thing. His plan is to sit down with the teams and with his knowledge and their input develop the details before he takes office on Dec. 1.
There is no one single simple solution to any of the 3 goals he want to achieve. There will be many approaches and plans implemented. His proposed Secretary of the Treasury has already drawn up a plan to help eliminate corruption government purchasing. It will be based on a model much like the retail giant Amazon uses. A data base will be established for vendors that sell to the govt. (they will be vetted) and prices negotiated by a dept in the Treasury. Any governmental entity that wants to make a purchase must go through the procedures set up in that Amazon model where the the agency will have options of what company to purchase from (price is already set). The purchase application will be examined and if approved the purchase will be monitored to ensure that the purchase is used as set forth in the application. Currently there are millions of dollars lost through "kickbacks", "ghost companies", diversion of materials from one project to another, etc.
He has already promised more modest proposals such as cutting his salary in half. Continuing to live in his modest house and turning the "official residence of the President" Los Pinos into a public park for the people to enjoy. He wants to eliminate or greatly reduce the pensions of high government officials. Currently when a member of Congress leaves his position in Congress and retires he receives a pension equal to his salary in Congress even if he has only served one term.
He also pledges to sell off the presidential planes and helicopters and take commercial flights instead and use the proceeds to help the poor. Asked by an interviewer during the campaign what he would do if his flight was delayed on the way to a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, he replied: “I will be late.”
AMNESTY AND CURBING VIOLENCE
I'll start with the elephant in the room, amnesty.
Probably the most frequent criticism of AMLO is the claim that he is going to give amnesty to the cartels and the cartel capos and all the killers. I have followed AMLO's campaign even before it was a official campaign. And everything I can find that he has said since he became the front runner in the campaign and it was obvious he was going to win and I have never seen a statement from him that he would give amnesty to cartel leaders.
What I have seen is he has said repeatedly that everything is on the table. Taken in context Andrés Manuel López Obrador floated the idea of an amnesty for drug cartel kingpins, saying he wanted a dialog on the drug war. At the time (Dec. 2017) he said that political maneuvering had already begun for the 1 July 2018 presidential election, but none of the parties or potential candidates had made curbing the violence a central plank of their platform. As he said he wanted to create a dialog about reducing violence. “If it is necessary … we will talk about granting amnesty so long as the victims and their families are willing,” he said.
He later told reporters: “We’ll propose it. I’m analyzing it. What I can say is that we will leave no issue without discussion if it has to do with peace and tranquility.” He certainly succeeded in creating a dialog when all the other candidates didn't want to talk about reducing violence because it was such a difficult problem to solve.
Out of that dialog he wanted to create came a proposal that would offer amnesty for those that were incarcerated for less serious crimes that did not involve violence. Many of those had received sentences that were disproportionate to the the crime for which they were convicted.
I said earlier that he firmly believes that his 3 basic agendas, reducing corruption, reducing violence and reducing poverty are inter-related. A study done a couple of years ago showed that 85% of inmates in prison had not completed high school.
Many of those low level offenders that would receive amnesty would have to meet certain conditions or they would would go back to jail. One of those conditions would be that would enroll in a similar to a program that would be offered to "nini's" (young people not in school and without a job.)
AMLO calls the program “becarios sÃ, sicarios no” (scholars yes, assassins no). Many "ninis" drop out of school because of poverty and they needed to work to help support their families and then they couldn't get a job or if the did it didn't last long and they were unemployed and couldn't find another. Others dropped out not because of poverty but just because they knew there were no good jobs for them in the labor market so why continue in school. All of those "ninis" are prime targets for recruitment by the cartels. A big labor pool for the cartels.
AMLO is proposing a massive social program to grant scholarships, grants, or stipends to finish high school, enroll in trade schools or universities to young people without a job and to those freed from prison under his amnesty plan for low level offenders. And they would be guaranteed a job on completion of the program. He thinks the business community will work with him for some jobs in the private sector (several leaders in the business community have agreed to apprenticeship programs) and some jobs are currently with the government.
He is also pursuing an idea of creating some new govt. jobs through some programs similar to FDR's programs created during the Great Depression of the 1930's like the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) and WPA (Public Works Administration). One proposal is for reforestation of the thousands of acres decimated by illegal logging. It is estimated that it would take 14 million trees and 7 years to reforest those acres. If some of it was in native trees for logging and some fruit trees to benefit the farmers, all the better. It would provide lots of jobs and pay for itself in time.
The program AMLO calls “becarios sÃ, sicarios no” would hurt the cartels by reducing their labor pool from which they recruit. It would help the economy and help reduce poverty by providing jobs. It is part of a framework that he believes is necessary to fight crime and violence. His philosophy is that you can't fight violence with violence. It just creates more violence, arguing that the drug war needs to be approached with a framework that includes a broader understanding of the problem.
Another example of building that framework are his plans to help farmers and the agricultural industry.
"Why do people grow poppies? Because they have nothing to eat," he said. "You can't fight violence with violence; this is an evil that we have to fight by doing good, and by creating economic growth, jobs and wellbeing." lfredo Acedo, spokesman for the National Union of Autonomous Regional Organizations (UNORCA), a confederation of campesino (farmer) groups has said that guaranteed prices and other kinds of support for rural producers proposed by Lopez Obrador could be key to fighting drug trafficking. "He's been very clear, we have to resolve poverty and marginalisation, and that in itself will fix the problem of organized crime and drug trafficking to a large degree," he said. "If the campesinos who grow opium poppies or marijuana, or work with drug trafficking in some other way, if the government offered them programs that guarantee their harvests will be bought and stored for fair prices that guarantee them subsistence - of course, they will stop working with drug traffickers
HOW CAN HE DO ALL THIS WHEN ALL HIS PREDECESSORS HAVE FAILED?
Even his supporters recognize it will take time to accomplish his goals of reducing corruption, lessening violence and alleviating poverty and question whether he can do it in a six year term. One answer he gives is I already have my cabinet in place and we will start working on Dec. when I am sworn in. I start my day at 6AM with a meeting of my security team to work on violence issues. Then I work a 16 hour day. That is the equivalent to 2 days work for normal people. So at the end of my 6 year term I will have worked the equivalent of 12 years.
He plans to pay for all these programs by reduction of corruption. Several studies have shown that Mexico loses up to 10% of GDP to corruption. AMLO says recovering that or even a big part of it will pay for his programs without any tax increases. He says "there's a lot of money out there and where there is money there is corruption and we will find it."
Lopez Obrador's many years spent seeking the Presidency were not motivated by seeking to acquire power, but to go down in History as having been a good President of Mexico. There have only been a few that left that legacy.
BUT THEY ARE TARGETING MINORITIES
Police credit technology for helping reduce bloodshed in Chicago this year
By Jeremy Gorner
Chicago Tribune
July 9, 2018
CHICAGO — As a pastor, Curtis Britt Sr. has counseled numerous grieving parents from his West Side congregation who lost children to Chicago’s unrelenting gun violence.
Now, with the killing last month of his own 26-year-old son in broad daylight, he truly understands the depth of their pain — and the obstacles to meaningful progress.
“It’s sad that in certain neighborhoods … the violence is such where it almost seems like you’re in a situation where it’s nothing you can do about it,” said Britt, 51, who delivered both the sermon and eulogy at the funeral of his son and namesake. “A lot of (residents) have gotten to the point where they just feel like this is something that they’re going to have to live with because it’s not going to change.”
At the halfway mark of 2018, shootings in Chicago overall have fallen by double-digit numbers for a second consecutive year, while homicides have dropped even further — a contrast to 2016 when violence hit levels unseen for two decades. But the violence is still outpacing 2015 and 2014 levels as some communities scattered mostly through the West and Southwest sides continue to struggle to make headway.
While the Police Department has heralded new technological advances for playing a key part in the improved overall numbers, the success has been mixed, most notably in the stark contrast in results in the city’s two historically most violent districts.
The West Side’s Harrison and South Side’s Englewood police districts were the first in the city early last year to be equipped with nerve centers designed to help officers better predict where shootings might occur and respond more quickly to gunfire.
Through July 1, shooting incidents have plunged in the Englewood District to 77, a 29 percent decline from 108 a year earlier, according to the Police Department. Homicides fell to 23, a 26 percent drop from 31.
But the Harrison District, which includes the East Garfield Park neighborhood where Curtis Britt Jr. was fatally shot on June 8, leads the city in homicides at 36, two more than at the halfway point of 2017. Shooting incidents totaled 154, a 7 percent drop from 165 a year earlier.
In a joint interview, Kenneth Johnson and his twin brother, Kevin, the commanders of the two districts, couldn’t say why Harrison hasn’t been able to make the same strides as Englewood.
Both agreed technology is just one of many tools they use to fight crime in their districts.
Jens Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, which is working with Chicago police to run the nerve centers, said the violence on the West Side appears to be more closely linked to drug activity.
“It could be that the nature of the violence itself is making it harder for the (nerve centers) to have an initial impact on the West Side,” he said.
But Kevin Johnson, who heads the Harrison District, is convinced that the violence in his district would be even worse without the technology.
“What’s key is getting that information to the beat officer, the units in the field,” he said as he sat next to his brother at police headquarters. “They’re able to work smarter. They’re working faster. We’re leveraging all this technology to make things happen.”
Such technology isn’t new to Chicago police. For the last 15 years, the department has been analyzing crime statistics to try to make informed predictions about where violence will strike next. But those analyses were performed at police headquarters, with the information trickling out to the 22 individual districts.
Now, in 13 of the districts, everyone from tactical lieutenants to station supervisors to community policing officers work each day in the nerve centers to review everything from where shootings are taking place to who is wanted on arrest warrants. They also track high-profile shooting anniversaries that could lead to retaliatory violence as well as arrests for gun crimes.
District supervisors analyze shooting data in real time through software called HunchLab to quickly determine where best to deploy their beat patrol and tactical officers. This is all integrated with gunshot detection technology called ShotSpotter that tells officers in the field on their work-issued smartphones from where the gunfire is coming.
The technology showcased at these nerve centers includes large TV screens that display crime maps and surveillance video footage from cameras affixed to light poles at locations throughout the city.
Police and city officials struggled for years with strategies to reduce violence in Englewood and Harrison, both stricken by poverty, joblessness and school closures — all recipes for persistent crime. Entrenched gang conflicts and deeply rooted tensions between the police and the black community have also complicated crime-fighting efforts.
The two districts are regularly the focus of elite citywide units that conduct sensitive investigations on gang conflicts and gun trafficking. FBI agents and other federal law enforcement also work on long-term cases there.
The Johnson brothers have long experience with crime issues in Englewood and Harrison. Kevin Johnson, with the Police Department for 27 years, worked as a patrol officer in Englewood for much of the 1990s, while his brother, Kenneth, a 31-year veteran, was a lieutenant in Harrison before his promotion to Englewood’s commander in 2016.
The brothers said the districts have their own unique set of issues.
While the illegal drug trade affects both districts, Harrison’s issues with narcotics-related violence are more pronounced because of its many open-air drug markets and proximity to the Eisenhower Expressway — dubbed the “Heroin Highway” with its easy access for drug-buying customers from the suburbs and downtown — and the CTA Blue Line.
“The open-air drug market may be as small as a particular corner or be as large as a block,” Kevin Johnson said. “It speaks to the largest socioeconomic challenges that face the community. There’s been a loss of jobs, businesses.”
In Englewood, Kenneth Johnson said the violence is fueled more by personal disputes and gang conflicts that often erupt over social media.
“These aren’t strangers coming from one area to another area,” he said. “All of these individuals know each other.”
Englewood has seen some development — Kennedy-King College has expanded at the busy corridor at 63rd and Halsted streets and a strip mall at the same corner includes a Chipotle fast-food restaurant, a Starbucks coffee shop and a Whole Foods grocery store.
But a significant drop in population has taken place there in recent years.
From 2010 through 2016, West Englewood and Englewood ranked second and third, respectively, among Chicago’s 77 communities in population decline with a combined loss of about 9,340 people, a 14 percent drop, according to U.S. Census Bureau data compiled by the local demography firm Rob Paral and Associates.
While African-Americans accounted for most of those losses, the Hispanic population there has been growing, to almost 2,650 at the end of 2016, more than double the total from 2010, the data show.
It’s unclear, though, if the change in population has affected violence in the police district, according to criminologists.
“Crime ebbs and flows,” Kenneth Johnson said. “There’s going to be particular factors that we can’t exactly quantify that are (causing) things to go up and down.”
Johnson does credit some of the reduction in violence over the first half to inroads that officers have made with anti-violence outreach workers and citizens in the communities who long distrusted the police.
Still, he acknowledged that fully winning over the community will take a lot more time.
“This trust, it’s not an easily won thing,” he said. “Trust is easily broken and very difficult to win.”
For many years, Bishop Vesta Dixon, pastor of Evening Star Missionary Baptist Church in West Englewood, said he invited police without success to a back-to-school event. Last summer two officers attended.
Dixon said the contact promises to help break down barriers and fears — on both sides.
“Let them see you, not with your gun out, not stopping them,” Dixon said in his 59th Street office. “But see you as a friend.”
The district has also aggressively been tearing down abandoned buildings, havens for criminal activity in addition to serving as safety hazards. According to city Building Department data, 84 buildings were demolished in the Englewood District in the first nine months of 2017, by far the most of all 22 districts. By comparison, Harrison ranked third with 42 buildings demolished through September.
“We’re very much focused on working with landlords and building owners to bring the buildings up to code so we can have safe, positive locations for our residents to move into,” Kenneth Johnson said. “If you have an abandoned building, and it’s on the path of a school … we’re trying to reduce the likelihood of maybe someone luring a child into that building or … set up a dope spot.”
Overall, homicides in Chicago dropped sharply through July 1, falling to 254 homicides, a 23 percent decline from 331 a year earlier. But Harrison marked one of seven districts in which killings rose or stayed flat, though several of those were in low-crime North Side neighborhoods. The Austin District, which borders Harrison and was also equipped with a nerve center beginning last year, ranked second in the city with 27 homicides, the same as last year.
Two years after a viral cellphone video showed an officer stomping on a suspect’s head in the 3900 block of West Grenshaw Street, Kevin Johnson pointed to some success by police in Harrison working with the community.
That block was already a notorious drug spot, a problem so severe that residents feared even going outside, said Johnson, who became the district’s commander two months after the stomping incident.
“They were just trapped by the drug dealers,” he said. “They had to put chained links on the wrought iron fences to keep the drug dealers from sitting on their porches to sell drugs.”
One woman who lives on the block but declined to give her name because of safety concerns told the Tribune that drug sellers worked shifts “morning, noon and night.”
“The shooting over here was constant,” she said. If gunfire rang out when her two grandchildren were at her home, “they’d hit the floor,” she said.
Kevin Johnson said he implored concerned residents on Grenshaw to start a block club, a good way for residents to show their commitment against drug dealers hanging out on their street.
Johnson said the district also started to arrange for tree-cutting and more efficient garbage pickups on the block. The community came together with the aid of the police, and the criminal element got the message.
Crime on that block of Grenshaw has plunged over the first half of the year, according to Johnson and city data.
“They saw we were serious,” he said. “We just weren’t just driving by and (saying) … ‘Get off the corner.’ We were stopping the cars. We were getting on foot. We’re engaging the community. We’re like ‘we’re not leaving.”
By Jeremy Gorner
Chicago Tribune
July 9, 2018
CHICAGO — As a pastor, Curtis Britt Sr. has counseled numerous grieving parents from his West Side congregation who lost children to Chicago’s unrelenting gun violence.
Now, with the killing last month of his own 26-year-old son in broad daylight, he truly understands the depth of their pain — and the obstacles to meaningful progress.
“It’s sad that in certain neighborhoods … the violence is such where it almost seems like you’re in a situation where it’s nothing you can do about it,” said Britt, 51, who delivered both the sermon and eulogy at the funeral of his son and namesake. “A lot of (residents) have gotten to the point where they just feel like this is something that they’re going to have to live with because it’s not going to change.”
At the halfway mark of 2018, shootings in Chicago overall have fallen by double-digit numbers for a second consecutive year, while homicides have dropped even further — a contrast to 2016 when violence hit levels unseen for two decades. But the violence is still outpacing 2015 and 2014 levels as some communities scattered mostly through the West and Southwest sides continue to struggle to make headway.
While the Police Department has heralded new technological advances for playing a key part in the improved overall numbers, the success has been mixed, most notably in the stark contrast in results in the city’s two historically most violent districts.
The West Side’s Harrison and South Side’s Englewood police districts were the first in the city early last year to be equipped with nerve centers designed to help officers better predict where shootings might occur and respond more quickly to gunfire.
Through July 1, shooting incidents have plunged in the Englewood District to 77, a 29 percent decline from 108 a year earlier, according to the Police Department. Homicides fell to 23, a 26 percent drop from 31.
But the Harrison District, which includes the East Garfield Park neighborhood where Curtis Britt Jr. was fatally shot on June 8, leads the city in homicides at 36, two more than at the halfway point of 2017. Shooting incidents totaled 154, a 7 percent drop from 165 a year earlier.
In a joint interview, Kenneth Johnson and his twin brother, Kevin, the commanders of the two districts, couldn’t say why Harrison hasn’t been able to make the same strides as Englewood.
Both agreed technology is just one of many tools they use to fight crime in their districts.
Jens Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, which is working with Chicago police to run the nerve centers, said the violence on the West Side appears to be more closely linked to drug activity.
“It could be that the nature of the violence itself is making it harder for the (nerve centers) to have an initial impact on the West Side,” he said.
But Kevin Johnson, who heads the Harrison District, is convinced that the violence in his district would be even worse without the technology.
“What’s key is getting that information to the beat officer, the units in the field,” he said as he sat next to his brother at police headquarters. “They’re able to work smarter. They’re working faster. We’re leveraging all this technology to make things happen.”
Such technology isn’t new to Chicago police. For the last 15 years, the department has been analyzing crime statistics to try to make informed predictions about where violence will strike next. But those analyses were performed at police headquarters, with the information trickling out to the 22 individual districts.
Now, in 13 of the districts, everyone from tactical lieutenants to station supervisors to community policing officers work each day in the nerve centers to review everything from where shootings are taking place to who is wanted on arrest warrants. They also track high-profile shooting anniversaries that could lead to retaliatory violence as well as arrests for gun crimes.
District supervisors analyze shooting data in real time through software called HunchLab to quickly determine where best to deploy their beat patrol and tactical officers. This is all integrated with gunshot detection technology called ShotSpotter that tells officers in the field on their work-issued smartphones from where the gunfire is coming.
The technology showcased at these nerve centers includes large TV screens that display crime maps and surveillance video footage from cameras affixed to light poles at locations throughout the city.
Police and city officials struggled for years with strategies to reduce violence in Englewood and Harrison, both stricken by poverty, joblessness and school closures — all recipes for persistent crime. Entrenched gang conflicts and deeply rooted tensions between the police and the black community have also complicated crime-fighting efforts.
The two districts are regularly the focus of elite citywide units that conduct sensitive investigations on gang conflicts and gun trafficking. FBI agents and other federal law enforcement also work on long-term cases there.
The Johnson brothers have long experience with crime issues in Englewood and Harrison. Kevin Johnson, with the Police Department for 27 years, worked as a patrol officer in Englewood for much of the 1990s, while his brother, Kenneth, a 31-year veteran, was a lieutenant in Harrison before his promotion to Englewood’s commander in 2016.
The brothers said the districts have their own unique set of issues.
While the illegal drug trade affects both districts, Harrison’s issues with narcotics-related violence are more pronounced because of its many open-air drug markets and proximity to the Eisenhower Expressway — dubbed the “Heroin Highway” with its easy access for drug-buying customers from the suburbs and downtown — and the CTA Blue Line.
“The open-air drug market may be as small as a particular corner or be as large as a block,” Kevin Johnson said. “It speaks to the largest socioeconomic challenges that face the community. There’s been a loss of jobs, businesses.”
In Englewood, Kenneth Johnson said the violence is fueled more by personal disputes and gang conflicts that often erupt over social media.
“These aren’t strangers coming from one area to another area,” he said. “All of these individuals know each other.”
Englewood has seen some development — Kennedy-King College has expanded at the busy corridor at 63rd and Halsted streets and a strip mall at the same corner includes a Chipotle fast-food restaurant, a Starbucks coffee shop and a Whole Foods grocery store.
But a significant drop in population has taken place there in recent years.
From 2010 through 2016, West Englewood and Englewood ranked second and third, respectively, among Chicago’s 77 communities in population decline with a combined loss of about 9,340 people, a 14 percent drop, according to U.S. Census Bureau data compiled by the local demography firm Rob Paral and Associates.
While African-Americans accounted for most of those losses, the Hispanic population there has been growing, to almost 2,650 at the end of 2016, more than double the total from 2010, the data show.
It’s unclear, though, if the change in population has affected violence in the police district, according to criminologists.
“Crime ebbs and flows,” Kenneth Johnson said. “There’s going to be particular factors that we can’t exactly quantify that are (causing) things to go up and down.”
Johnson does credit some of the reduction in violence over the first half to inroads that officers have made with anti-violence outreach workers and citizens in the communities who long distrusted the police.
Still, he acknowledged that fully winning over the community will take a lot more time.
“This trust, it’s not an easily won thing,” he said. “Trust is easily broken and very difficult to win.”
For many years, Bishop Vesta Dixon, pastor of Evening Star Missionary Baptist Church in West Englewood, said he invited police without success to a back-to-school event. Last summer two officers attended.
Dixon said the contact promises to help break down barriers and fears — on both sides.
“Let them see you, not with your gun out, not stopping them,” Dixon said in his 59th Street office. “But see you as a friend.”
The district has also aggressively been tearing down abandoned buildings, havens for criminal activity in addition to serving as safety hazards. According to city Building Department data, 84 buildings were demolished in the Englewood District in the first nine months of 2017, by far the most of all 22 districts. By comparison, Harrison ranked third with 42 buildings demolished through September.
“We’re very much focused on working with landlords and building owners to bring the buildings up to code so we can have safe, positive locations for our residents to move into,” Kenneth Johnson said. “If you have an abandoned building, and it’s on the path of a school … we’re trying to reduce the likelihood of maybe someone luring a child into that building or … set up a dope spot.”
Overall, homicides in Chicago dropped sharply through July 1, falling to 254 homicides, a 23 percent decline from 331 a year earlier. But Harrison marked one of seven districts in which killings rose or stayed flat, though several of those were in low-crime North Side neighborhoods. The Austin District, which borders Harrison and was also equipped with a nerve center beginning last year, ranked second in the city with 27 homicides, the same as last year.
Two years after a viral cellphone video showed an officer stomping on a suspect’s head in the 3900 block of West Grenshaw Street, Kevin Johnson pointed to some success by police in Harrison working with the community.
That block was already a notorious drug spot, a problem so severe that residents feared even going outside, said Johnson, who became the district’s commander two months after the stomping incident.
“They were just trapped by the drug dealers,” he said. “They had to put chained links on the wrought iron fences to keep the drug dealers from sitting on their porches to sell drugs.”
One woman who lives on the block but declined to give her name because of safety concerns told the Tribune that drug sellers worked shifts “morning, noon and night.”
“The shooting over here was constant,” she said. If gunfire rang out when her two grandchildren were at her home, “they’d hit the floor,” she said.
Kevin Johnson said he implored concerned residents on Grenshaw to start a block club, a good way for residents to show their commitment against drug dealers hanging out on their street.
Johnson said the district also started to arrange for tree-cutting and more efficient garbage pickups on the block. The community came together with the aid of the police, and the criminal element got the message.
Crime on that block of Grenshaw has plunged over the first half of the year, according to Johnson and city data.
“They saw we were serious,” he said. “We just weren’t just driving by and (saying) … ‘Get off the corner.’ We were stopping the cars. We were getting on foot. We’re engaging the community. We’re like ‘we’re not leaving.”
Thursday, July 12, 2018
THAI CAVE RESCUERS DEFINE TRUE MEANING OF HERO
Thai navy SEALS, one of whom lost his life, and volunteers from around the globe risked their lives in a bid to save boys and their soccer coach trapped deep inside a flooded cave
I get so sick and tired of hearing football players referred to as heroes. And now the dipshits that are confronting Trump Administration officials in restaurants are called heroes too. Well, they are not heroes, they are just plain athletes and dipshits.
If you’re looking for true heroes, you need not look any further than for the Thai navy SEALS, one of whom lost his life, and the volunteers from around the globe who risked their lives in a bid to save 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped deep inside a flooded cave. The four divers and the doctor who stayed in the cavern with the boys and their coach while they were being rescued until the last one was safely brought to the surface define the true meaning of hero. So do the other divers who participated in the rescue. And the coach is a hero too for helping to keep the boys alive until they were found by a team of rescuers.
Of course, there are other true heroes. They are the soldiers who engage an enemy in combat in defense of our country. Try telling a soldier who lost his legs while fighting our enemies that some football player is a hero. Then there are the cops who risk their lives in confronting dangerous criminals and nutjobs. And there are the firefighters who will enter a burning building to rescue people trapped inside. There are also the civilians who risk their lives trying to save the lives of people trapped in submerged or burning cars, swimmers about to drown in a river, lake or ocean, and people trapped in a burning building.
To call some dipshit, be it a teacher or otherwise, a hero for confronting a Trump Administration official in a restaurant is a gross insult to the Thai cave rescuers, to our soldiers, cops and firefighters, and to the civilians who risk their lives trying to save others.
Referring to some fucking football player as a hero makes me want to puke.
I get so sick and tired of hearing football players referred to as heroes. And now the dipshits that are confronting Trump Administration officials in restaurants are called heroes too. Well, they are not heroes, they are just plain athletes and dipshits.
If you’re looking for true heroes, you need not look any further than for the Thai navy SEALS, one of whom lost his life, and the volunteers from around the globe who risked their lives in a bid to save 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped deep inside a flooded cave. The four divers and the doctor who stayed in the cavern with the boys and their coach while they were being rescued until the last one was safely brought to the surface define the true meaning of hero. So do the other divers who participated in the rescue. And the coach is a hero too for helping to keep the boys alive until they were found by a team of rescuers.
Of course, there are other true heroes. They are the soldiers who engage an enemy in combat in defense of our country. Try telling a soldier who lost his legs while fighting our enemies that some football player is a hero. Then there are the cops who risk their lives in confronting dangerous criminals and nutjobs. And there are the firefighters who will enter a burning building to rescue people trapped inside. There are also the civilians who risk their lives trying to save the lives of people trapped in submerged or burning cars, swimmers about to drown in a river, lake or ocean, and people trapped in a burning building.
To call some dipshit, be it a teacher or otherwise, a hero for confronting a Trump Administration official in a restaurant is a gross insult to the Thai cave rescuers, to our soldiers, cops and firefighters, and to the civilians who risk their lives trying to save others.
Referring to some fucking football player as a hero makes me want to puke.
ENGLAND LOSES
by Bob Walsh
It would have been interesting to see the FIFA Football finals between France and England. Ain't gonna happen. England lost to freaking Croatia. How embarrassing is that? I heard the team is all going to change their names and move to Australia and hunt kangaroos for the rest of their miserable lives. The coach will stay in the UK and become the new coach of the Leeds local girls field hockey team. They will all give up beer for cider and lemonade. They are a sad, sad group indeed.
It would have been interesting to see the FIFA Football finals between France and England. Ain't gonna happen. England lost to freaking Croatia. How embarrassing is that? I heard the team is all going to change their names and move to Australia and hunt kangaroos for the rest of their miserable lives. The coach will stay in the UK and become the new coach of the Leeds local girls field hockey team. They will all give up beer for cider and lemonade. They are a sad, sad group indeed.
RETIRED COP USES EVIL AR-15 TO KILL BAD GUY AT CAMPGROUND
by Bob Walsh
On July 2 the cops in Douglas County, Colorado, went after Austin Benson, 29. He had stolen a vehicle and was shooting at other vehicles while he was being pursued.
He stopped at an unoccupied camp site and began yelling for no obvious reason. A family happened by in their vehicle to see what the problem was and Benson fired on them.
Nearby retied cop Wesley Mattox, 51, happened to be camping with his wife when he heard the hoorah. He went to see what the fuss was about and the situation rapidly deteriorated. Benson opened fire on Mattox. Mattox took out his AR-15 and shot back, emptying the gun. Benson crashed into a tree, and Mattox took out a second AR-15 and shot a few more times for good measure. Benson was hit several times, but is likely to survive. He is facing six charges of attempted first degree murder.
Since it did not happen in CA it is likely that Mattox will be OK legally.
On July 2 the cops in Douglas County, Colorado, went after Austin Benson, 29. He had stolen a vehicle and was shooting at other vehicles while he was being pursued.
He stopped at an unoccupied camp site and began yelling for no obvious reason. A family happened by in their vehicle to see what the problem was and Benson fired on them.
Nearby retied cop Wesley Mattox, 51, happened to be camping with his wife when he heard the hoorah. He went to see what the fuss was about and the situation rapidly deteriorated. Benson opened fire on Mattox. Mattox took out his AR-15 and shot back, emptying the gun. Benson crashed into a tree, and Mattox took out a second AR-15 and shot a few more times for good measure. Benson was hit several times, but is likely to survive. He is facing six charges of attempted first degree murder.
Since it did not happen in CA it is likely that Mattox will be OK legally.
SELF-CORRECTING PROBLEM
by Bob Walsh
On Monday the local constabulary in Bernville Borough, Berks County, PA responded to a call from an employee of the Game Commission. When the cops showed up two men fled into the brush for reasons unknown. The cops followed and apprehended one. The second man, later identified as Gregory Longennecker, 51, go away temporarily. The cops pursued, using a helicopter to spot and a bulldozer to clear a way thru the heavy brush.
Longennecker was found shortly thereafter, under the ass end of the bulldozer. He apparently had a heart attack running thru the heavy brush and got run over. He was well and truly dead.
His road dog, David Light, 54, admitted to the cops they had been tending a nearby marijuana grow.
On Monday the local constabulary in Bernville Borough, Berks County, PA responded to a call from an employee of the Game Commission. When the cops showed up two men fled into the brush for reasons unknown. The cops followed and apprehended one. The second man, later identified as Gregory Longennecker, 51, go away temporarily. The cops pursued, using a helicopter to spot and a bulldozer to clear a way thru the heavy brush.
Longennecker was found shortly thereafter, under the ass end of the bulldozer. He apparently had a heart attack running thru the heavy brush and got run over. He was well and truly dead.
His road dog, David Light, 54, admitted to the cops they had been tending a nearby marijuana grow.
LISA PAGE STIFFS CONGRESS
by Bob Walsh
Disgraced former FBI attorney Lisa Page did a no-show for the congressional committee on Wednesday. They are pissed. They SHOULD hold her in contempt of congess, but probably won't, because they are a bunch of spineless dicks.
Disgraced former FBI attorney Lisa Page did a no-show for the congressional committee on Wednesday. They are pissed. They SHOULD hold her in contempt of congess, but probably won't, because they are a bunch of spineless dicks.
CONDITION ORANGE, WATCH YOUR SIX, GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS
by Bob Walsh
Rolando Romero, 61, was a security guard at a public housing project in the People's Republic of San Francisco. He was about one hour until the end of shift early on July 2 and was sitting on a bench video chatting with his wife. Somebody walked up to him and shot him to death.
Cardell Mason Coleman Jr., 24, is in custody for the murder. The killing was captured on video and Coleman has admitted to the shooting and to hiding the gun.
Rolando Romero, 61, was a security guard at a public housing project in the People's Republic of San Francisco. He was about one hour until the end of shift early on July 2 and was sitting on a bench video chatting with his wife. Somebody walked up to him and shot him to death.
Cardell Mason Coleman Jr., 24, is in custody for the murder. The killing was captured on video and Coleman has admitted to the shooting and to hiding the gun.
HELL NO, YOU CAN'T VOTE ..... AT LEAST ON THIS
by Bob Walsh
A lawsuit has been launched in the formerly great state of California to stop a ballot initiative that would, if successfully, allow for the splitting of the state into three chunks.
The Planning and Conservation League filed the action, asserting that the proposed change it "too drastic" to be allowed to go thru the normal ballot initiative process. They claim that the legislature must, by 2/3 vote, approve such a proposal or, if that action isn't taken, a state constitutional convention must be used to make the move.
The California Supreme Court has supported this position in the past, stating that initiatives in question actually changed "government structure" which was not what was intended by the California initiative process.
A lawsuit has been launched in the formerly great state of California to stop a ballot initiative that would, if successfully, allow for the splitting of the state into three chunks.
The Planning and Conservation League filed the action, asserting that the proposed change it "too drastic" to be allowed to go thru the normal ballot initiative process. They claim that the legislature must, by 2/3 vote, approve such a proposal or, if that action isn't taken, a state constitutional convention must be used to make the move.
The California Supreme Court has supported this position in the past, stating that initiatives in question actually changed "government structure" which was not what was intended by the California initiative process.
INTERESTING STATISTIC
by Bob Walsh
By law the Cal DOJ is required to issue a yearly report on gunshot deaths by police in the state. The report is purely statistical, not commenting on legality or justification.
During calendar year 2017 various police agencies killed 172 civilians and 2 police officers with gunfire. This was the result of somewhat more than 700 incidents.
In the previous year 157 civilians and five police officers.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Cops shooting cops?
By law the Cal DOJ is required to issue a yearly report on gunshot deaths by police in the state. The report is purely statistical, not commenting on legality or justification.
During calendar year 2017 various police agencies killed 172 civilians and 2 police officers with gunfire. This was the result of somewhat more than 700 incidents.
In the previous year 157 civilians and five police officers.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Cops shooting cops?
MASSIVE WATER THEFT BACK UP AND RUNNING
by Bob Walsh
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has agreed to buy into the theft to the tune of about $11 billion. This makes it much more likely, though far from certain, that the $16.7 billion theft of water from NorCal, called California WaterFix, or California WaterFuck, depending on who you ask, will actually happen. The district vote was 60% t0 39%.
This means that, if it goes ahead, this district will fund about 66% of the project, even though it's customers will get only about 25% of the water stolen. Essentially what will happen is the SoCal district is paying the amount the districts in the rural San Joaquin valley are not willing to go in for, out of fear of massive cost overrides.
The project would drive two huge tunnels under the Delta to a diversion pumping station for the California Aquaduct, diverting gazzilions of gallons of water from the Delta to keep golf courses nice in SoCal.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has agreed to buy into the theft to the tune of about $11 billion. This makes it much more likely, though far from certain, that the $16.7 billion theft of water from NorCal, called California WaterFix, or California WaterFuck, depending on who you ask, will actually happen. The district vote was 60% t0 39%.
This means that, if it goes ahead, this district will fund about 66% of the project, even though it's customers will get only about 25% of the water stolen. Essentially what will happen is the SoCal district is paying the amount the districts in the rural San Joaquin valley are not willing to go in for, out of fear of massive cost overrides.
The project would drive two huge tunnels under the Delta to a diversion pumping station for the California Aquaduct, diverting gazzilions of gallons of water from the Delta to keep golf courses nice in SoCal.
YES, IT WAS JUST A STUNT
by Bob Walsh
The much touted name change of the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) to the International House of Burgers (IHOB) was in fact just a publicity stunt to let the general public know that they were now offering a full line of hamburgers on their menu. Whoop de doo.
The much touted name change of the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) to the International House of Burgers (IHOB) was in fact just a publicity stunt to let the general public know that they were now offering a full line of hamburgers on their menu. Whoop de doo.
TRUMP BLASTS GERMANY ….. THEN HAS A KISS-AND-MAKEUP MEETING WITH MERKEL
In a testy exchange with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg,, Trump blasted Germany for its energy deal with Russia
During a meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, President Trump had this testy exchange with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg:
Trump: “Now, if you look at it, Germany is a captive of Russia because they supply. They got rid of their coal plants. They got rid of their nuclear. They’re getting so much of the oil and gas from Russia. I think it’s something that NATO has to look at. I think it’s very inappropriate. You and I agree that it’s inappropriate. I don’t know what you can do about it now, but it certainly doesn’t seem to make sense that they paid billions of dollars to Russia and now we have to defend them against Russia.”
Stoltenberg: “You know, NATO is an alliance of 29 nations, and there are sometimes differences and different views, and also some disagreements. And the gas pipeline from Russia to Germany is one issue where allies disagree. But the strength of NATO is that despite these differences, we have always been able to unite around our core task, to protect and defend each other, because we understand that we are stronger together than apart.
“I think that two World Wars and the Cold War taught us that we are stronger together than apart.”
Trump: “But how can you be together when a country is getting its energy from the person you want protection against or from the group that you want protection?”
Stoltenberg: “Because we understand that when we stand together, also in dealing with Russia, we are stronger.”
__________
Market Watch reported that Trump later did meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Trump said they had a “great meeting” discussing military expenditure and trade. Merkel said the meeting was an opportunity to exchange views on migration and trade. “We are partners,” she said, “we are good partners, and wish to continue to cooperate in the future.”
Market Watch also reported that in a joint statement, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called the Trump remarks an “embarrassment” and said it’s “another profoundly disturbing signal that the president is more loyal to President Putin than to our NATO allies.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Trump is a different drummer. He just doesn’t play the phony niceties diplomats use. If there is any embarrassment here, it’s Pelosi and Schumer.
During a meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, President Trump had this testy exchange with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg:
Trump: “Now, if you look at it, Germany is a captive of Russia because they supply. They got rid of their coal plants. They got rid of their nuclear. They’re getting so much of the oil and gas from Russia. I think it’s something that NATO has to look at. I think it’s very inappropriate. You and I agree that it’s inappropriate. I don’t know what you can do about it now, but it certainly doesn’t seem to make sense that they paid billions of dollars to Russia and now we have to defend them against Russia.”
Stoltenberg: “You know, NATO is an alliance of 29 nations, and there are sometimes differences and different views, and also some disagreements. And the gas pipeline from Russia to Germany is one issue where allies disagree. But the strength of NATO is that despite these differences, we have always been able to unite around our core task, to protect and defend each other, because we understand that we are stronger together than apart.
“I think that two World Wars and the Cold War taught us that we are stronger together than apart.”
Trump: “But how can you be together when a country is getting its energy from the person you want protection against or from the group that you want protection?”
Stoltenberg: “Because we understand that when we stand together, also in dealing with Russia, we are stronger.”
__________
Market Watch reported that Trump later did meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Trump said they had a “great meeting” discussing military expenditure and trade. Merkel said the meeting was an opportunity to exchange views on migration and trade. “We are partners,” she said, “we are good partners, and wish to continue to cooperate in the future.”
Market Watch also reported that in a joint statement, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called the Trump remarks an “embarrassment” and said it’s “another profoundly disturbing signal that the president is more loyal to President Putin than to our NATO allies.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Trump is a different drummer. He just doesn’t play the phony niceties diplomats use. If there is any embarrassment here, it’s Pelosi and Schumer.
UHHHHH, PAPA JOHN USED THE MOST FORBIDDEN WORD IN THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE
Papa John’s founder apologizes for using the n-word
by Eli Rosenberg
The Washington Post
July 11, 2018
Papa John’s founder and chairman John Schnatter apologized Wednesday for using the n-word during a May conference call with a marketing agency, in another corporate-relations flap for the pizza company.
Schnatter, a Trump donor who stepped down as the pizza corporation’s chief executive in January after he said that National Football League player protests were hurting his pizza sales, was the subject of a news report in the business publication Forbes that documented his use of the racial slur. He confirmed the allegation in his apology.
“News reports attributing the use of inappropriate and hurtful language to me during a media training session regarding race are true,” Schnatter said in a statement. “Regardless of the context, I apologize. Simply stated, racism has no place in our society.”
Forbes reported that Papa John’s executives were on a call with the marketing agency Laundry Service when Schnatter made the remark. The group was going through a role-playing exercise meant to better prepare for public-relations challenges.
Schnatter was asked how he would separate himself from racist groups online and responded by “downplaying the significance of his NFL statement,” Forbes reported.
“Colonel Sanders called blacks niggers,” Schnatter reportedly said.
The apology by Schnatter, who is still deeply intertwined with the brand, serving as chairman and a de facto mascot, kicked off a cascade of reactions. He resigned from the University of Louisville Board of Trustees after the local branch of the NAACP called on him to be removed.
“The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People a few years ago held a funeral for the n-word,” the chapter said in a statement published by reporters online. “Though symbolic that event may have been, it was done hoping to place the word’s usage in a place never to be repeated or revived again.”
J. David Grissom, the chairman of the university board, said he had spoken to Schnatter on Wednesday.
“After speaking with John, I’m confident that his comments, while inappropriate, do not reflect his personal beliefs or values,” Grissom wrote.
Papa John’s stock plunged to a 12-month low in the wake of the news.
In November, Schnatter drew criticism after a call with investors in which he blamed slow sales at the company, which is an NFL advertiser, on the league’s “poor” leadership over the anthem demonstrations.
“This year, the ratings have gone backwards because of the controversy,” Schnatter said at the time. “The controversy is polarizing the customer, polarizing the country.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Uhhhhh, we’re going to have to banish John to the Gobi Desert for a year to do penance.
by Eli Rosenberg
The Washington Post
July 11, 2018
Papa John’s founder and chairman John Schnatter apologized Wednesday for using the n-word during a May conference call with a marketing agency, in another corporate-relations flap for the pizza company.
Schnatter, a Trump donor who stepped down as the pizza corporation’s chief executive in January after he said that National Football League player protests were hurting his pizza sales, was the subject of a news report in the business publication Forbes that documented his use of the racial slur. He confirmed the allegation in his apology.
“News reports attributing the use of inappropriate and hurtful language to me during a media training session regarding race are true,” Schnatter said in a statement. “Regardless of the context, I apologize. Simply stated, racism has no place in our society.”
Forbes reported that Papa John’s executives were on a call with the marketing agency Laundry Service when Schnatter made the remark. The group was going through a role-playing exercise meant to better prepare for public-relations challenges.
Schnatter was asked how he would separate himself from racist groups online and responded by “downplaying the significance of his NFL statement,” Forbes reported.
“Colonel Sanders called blacks niggers,” Schnatter reportedly said.
The apology by Schnatter, who is still deeply intertwined with the brand, serving as chairman and a de facto mascot, kicked off a cascade of reactions. He resigned from the University of Louisville Board of Trustees after the local branch of the NAACP called on him to be removed.
“The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People a few years ago held a funeral for the n-word,” the chapter said in a statement published by reporters online. “Though symbolic that event may have been, it was done hoping to place the word’s usage in a place never to be repeated or revived again.”
J. David Grissom, the chairman of the university board, said he had spoken to Schnatter on Wednesday.
“After speaking with John, I’m confident that his comments, while inappropriate, do not reflect his personal beliefs or values,” Grissom wrote.
Papa John’s stock plunged to a 12-month low in the wake of the news.
In November, Schnatter drew criticism after a call with investors in which he blamed slow sales at the company, which is an NFL advertiser, on the league’s “poor” leadership over the anthem demonstrations.
“This year, the ratings have gone backwards because of the controversy,” Schnatter said at the time. “The controversy is polarizing the customer, polarizing the country.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Uhhhhh, we’re going to have to banish John to the Gobi Desert for a year to do penance.
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
UNPATRIOTIC NFL PLAYERS FIGHT NEW LEAGUE RULE ABOUT STANDING FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM
The NFL Players Association has filed a grievance claiming that the new anthem policy infringes on players’ rights
In May, the NFL announced a long overdue policy on the conduct of players during the playing of the National Anthem. All players on the field are to stand at attention. Those players who refuse to do so are to temain in their locker rooms until the anthem has stopped playing.
Now the NFL Players Association is pissed off. The association has filed a grievance against the NFL claiming that the new policy infringes on players’ rights and violates their collective bargaining agreement.
What an ungrateful and unpatriotic sorry ass bastards. This country has given them the privilege of playing a game for a living at greatly inflated salaries. Since the birth of this country, countless brave men have died in defense of this country so that these pampered and overpaid assholes can make millions playing their game.
A violation of their collective bargaining rights? What a humongous crock of shit. Do they really believe that a good conduct policy which does not involve playing conditions and salaries should be subject to collective bargaining? What a bunch of sorry assholes!
Yes, they have a right to refuse to stand, but that right should have its consequences. I agree with President Trump. If they refuse to stand for the National Anthem, “fire those sons of bitches!”
In May, the NFL announced a long overdue policy on the conduct of players during the playing of the National Anthem. All players on the field are to stand at attention. Those players who refuse to do so are to temain in their locker rooms until the anthem has stopped playing.
Now the NFL Players Association is pissed off. The association has filed a grievance against the NFL claiming that the new policy infringes on players’ rights and violates their collective bargaining agreement.
What an ungrateful and unpatriotic sorry ass bastards. This country has given them the privilege of playing a game for a living at greatly inflated salaries. Since the birth of this country, countless brave men have died in defense of this country so that these pampered and overpaid assholes can make millions playing their game.
A violation of their collective bargaining rights? What a humongous crock of shit. Do they really believe that a good conduct policy which does not involve playing conditions and salaries should be subject to collective bargaining? What a bunch of sorry assholes!
Yes, they have a right to refuse to stand, but that right should have its consequences. I agree with President Trump. If they refuse to stand for the National Anthem, “fire those sons of bitches!”
I WAS MISTAKEN ABOUT THE SEPARATION OF KIDS FROM THEIR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT PARENTS
In my blogs, I insisted there were no little children ripped out of their mothers’ arms …. I was wrong!
In trying to defend the Trump administration, I have insisted there were no little children ripped out of their illegal immigrant mothers’ arms. I claimed that almost all the children separated from their parents were 12 and older. I was wrong, dead wrong!
As it turns out, there were102 children under 5 that were separated from their parents. That really sucks! And if 102 children were under 5, there must have been an even much larger number of kids between 5 and 10. That sucks too!
As I wrote before, the separation policy was stupid and unnecessary. The Democrats, with the help of the media, are going to keep this issue alive until the mid-term elections in November. The separation of children is not going to help the Republicans when voters go to mark their ballots.
To my readers, I apologize for my bad.
In trying to defend the Trump administration, I have insisted there were no little children ripped out of their illegal immigrant mothers’ arms. I claimed that almost all the children separated from their parents were 12 and older. I was wrong, dead wrong!
As it turns out, there were102 children under 5 that were separated from their parents. That really sucks! And if 102 children were under 5, there must have been an even much larger number of kids between 5 and 10. That sucks too!
As I wrote before, the separation policy was stupid and unnecessary. The Democrats, with the help of the media, are going to keep this issue alive until the mid-term elections in November. The separation of children is not going to help the Republicans when voters go to mark their ballots.
To my readers, I apologize for my bad.
JESSE JACKSON EXPOSES HIMSELF AS THE LOWEST OF LOWLIFES
Jackson complained about the effort to save the boys trapped in a Thai cave
In Houston Monday to attend a conference on ‘economic injustice’, Jesse Jackson said:
“We work so hard to save kids from caves in Thailand, but not from cages in Texas.”
Jackson was comparing the kids separated from their illegal immigrant parents and held in detention centers to the 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped deep down in a Thailand cave.
By making that statement, Jackson exposed himself as the lowest of lowlifes.
The kids in the detention centers are well fed, have comfortable beds, bathroom facilities, and get to shoot pool, do video gaming and watch TV.
The kids trapped in that cave were in complete darkness, cold, with no toilets, and they had no food or beds to sleep on. They all would have died had it not been for that gargantuan rescue effort.
And that lying poverty pimp knows damn well the kids in those Texas detention centers are not being held in cages.
Participating in that conference was the Ant-Defamation League, a Jewish organization originally formed to combat anti-Semitism. It is utterly disgusting to me to see the ADL associated with an anti-Semitic bigot like Jackson.
It will take a while for the stench left by Jackson in Houston to dissipate.
In Houston Monday to attend a conference on ‘economic injustice’, Jesse Jackson said:
“We work so hard to save kids from caves in Thailand, but not from cages in Texas.”
Jackson was comparing the kids separated from their illegal immigrant parents and held in detention centers to the 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped deep down in a Thailand cave.
By making that statement, Jackson exposed himself as the lowest of lowlifes.
The kids in the detention centers are well fed, have comfortable beds, bathroom facilities, and get to shoot pool, do video gaming and watch TV.
The kids trapped in that cave were in complete darkness, cold, with no toilets, and they had no food or beds to sleep on. They all would have died had it not been for that gargantuan rescue effort.
And that lying poverty pimp knows damn well the kids in those Texas detention centers are not being held in cages.
Participating in that conference was the Ant-Defamation League, a Jewish organization originally formed to combat anti-Semitism. It is utterly disgusting to me to see the ADL associated with an anti-Semitic bigot like Jackson.
It will take a while for the stench left by Jackson in Houston to dissipate.
JUST WHAT HOUSTON NEEDED ….. POVERTY PIMP JESSE JACKSON
Jackson came to Houston and urged that 2 million Latinos be registered to vote
By Sofia Ojeda and Lea Wilson
click2houston
July 9. 2018
HOUSTON - Rev. Jesse Jackson, Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis and several other community leaders came together Monday morning for a roundtable discussion that began with what they called economic injustice in Houston.
Ellis addressed a lawsuit against the Harris County's cash bail system that he and Jackson say keeps poor people behind bars.
He also pushed commissioners court to adopt polices that will give women and minorities a more fair chance to win contracts in Harris County.
Jackson talked about the importance of getting 2 million Latinos registered to vote. He said the vote really does matter for men and women of color and other minorities.
He also talked about the border crisis. Jackson is pushing people to fight for the poor, fight for the children and to fight for an equal playing ground.
"We work so hard to save kids from caves in Thailand, but not from cages in Texas," Jackson said.
FIEL Houston, NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League
EDITOR’S NOTE: Shame, shame on the Anti-Defamation League for associating itself with this anti-Semitic bigot!
By Sofia Ojeda and Lea Wilson
click2houston
July 9. 2018
HOUSTON - Rev. Jesse Jackson, Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis and several other community leaders came together Monday morning for a roundtable discussion that began with what they called economic injustice in Houston.
Ellis addressed a lawsuit against the Harris County's cash bail system that he and Jackson say keeps poor people behind bars.
He also pushed commissioners court to adopt polices that will give women and minorities a more fair chance to win contracts in Harris County.
Jackson talked about the importance of getting 2 million Latinos registered to vote. He said the vote really does matter for men and women of color and other minorities.
He also talked about the border crisis. Jackson is pushing people to fight for the poor, fight for the children and to fight for an equal playing ground.
"We work so hard to save kids from caves in Thailand, but not from cages in Texas," Jackson said.
FIEL Houston, NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League
EDITOR’S NOTE: Shame, shame on the Anti-Defamation League for associating itself with this anti-Semitic bigot!
SNEAKY, OR JUST STUPID PEOPLE ??
by Bob Walsh
Nancy Pelosi might know her constituents better than some congressional representatives do. She sent out an email yesterday soliciting donations from her constituents in order to aid her in her fight against the new, evil and horrible Trump nominee to SCOTUS. Nowhere in the email does it mention that she is a member of the House of Representatives and has ZERO voice in the confirmation or federal judges.
Now if it were Maxine Waters doing that I would just figure she was so stupid that she didn't realize that. Pelosi isn't quite that stupid, so I am guessing she thinks her constituents ARE that stupid and will send her money in a blind panic. Not very open, honest or transparent but that does not mean it won't work in the People's Republic of San Francisco.
Nancy Pelosi might know her constituents better than some congressional representatives do. She sent out an email yesterday soliciting donations from her constituents in order to aid her in her fight against the new, evil and horrible Trump nominee to SCOTUS. Nowhere in the email does it mention that she is a member of the House of Representatives and has ZERO voice in the confirmation or federal judges.
Now if it were Maxine Waters doing that I would just figure she was so stupid that she didn't realize that. Pelosi isn't quite that stupid, so I am guessing she thinks her constituents ARE that stupid and will send her money in a blind panic. Not very open, honest or transparent but that does not mean it won't work in the People's Republic of San Francisco.
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